JULIA MARLEY

To a Shadow in Flight

How might it be to be a bat, enclosed
In folds of clingy, enervated wings
As if the secret name of our world's rose,
Still cloistered within petals. Evenings
Stitch shut our eyelids, bury us in sleep
While you unhook your palsied hands, slice through
The unsuspecting spaces between trees,
Deserted, quarried promenades black-blue
With no moon mothering your night. I might
Be dead, I might have never lived. You clip
Through air regardless, lit by Nothing's light.
How much remains unsaid behind Sound's lip:
Why we are bound in hemispheres of time,
Why you are yours and I, finitely mine.