In
your laughter, heavens linger
And
I wonder if the rainbows quiver
On
your voice’s tenderness—as I—
As
hair—as all the world that spins on your tongue
When
shards of your presence touch me here,
Shredded
in thunders. In your laughter,
Paths
resonate, a season desires veneration
In
dreams, and all epiphanies of a brittle sky
Unfetter
the prisoned heart—and glow…
But
not from any other but itself
Upon
the hour of immolation…
Or
was it the hour of revelation
At
those sunlight notes who in their long
Jolly
jump make radiant rainbow arcs
Beyond
the grief of lone horizons?
Ami,
your laughter is freedom—a garland ray—
Honey
filament for the panting lobe
To
the famished skies by the west—
But
will you not first bestow to me
As
true the rude cloud must eavesdrop
The
stillness of even your song?
In
your laughter, the noon succumbs,
And
fantasies flutter like a nest of transcendent birds
Coursing
to air-roots, to sudden plunges
Of
the heart in sugar seams and melodic veins;
Eternities
dance in your laughter, Ami—as air—
They
dance—as that defiance of sand—
As
the desire of wind—in instant passion—
As
the courage of fire…
I
know your laughter, Ami
I
know your laughter—
O
I know your laughter, like the hurricanes
Of
my midnight skull, when bush-spirits
Caterwaul
around my head
I
know your laughter
Like
the tickle beneath my scalp, like
The
wandering manuscript beneath my desk, or that
Primordial
rein of the telephone ballad
In
quiet recesses of my fear…
In
your laughter, my solitude is a silence
In
your laughter, my silence is a story
First published in 'Love in A Moribund World: An Anthology of Love Poems'
Image credit: Cinnamon Cooney
