Heathen

Every time her bare foot touches the street,

she's making love to the universe.

She slips, naked, into an alley;

I cannot hold this pagan ghost.

Our eyes engage in trench warfare

before she dissolves into birds.

I covet the way she is bright with darkness,

how she dances on broken glass.

My suburban self cannot encapsulate this shapechanger:

shifting from craven raven to startled pigeon (always something with wings).

She is the dusk, and the pre-dawn sky

with laughter small and sharp as stars.

I cannot fathom this shadow-lust.

She calls to my hollow bones