words

cake and wine, dancing with spirits
in the country dark evening,
spilling over into the kitchen,
smoke and words, reaching an agreement
with the dead, sound and shape
suspended in this medium.

we sit in the trees
and scream in eagle dialect,
looking to find some rhythm
to the day, some lesson from the night.

pale light and easy movement,
too far out from the city
to feel the warmth of it
and so we make fire, we burrow in
like woodland rodents
or derelicts of common law.

in the dampness of suburb
we form like morning wet
as the evening progresses,
we eat cake and drink wine
like idiots beset with royal blood
clustered around some musical offering
and we spill out in to the night,
smoke and words, sound and shape,
suspended in this medium.

-S.C. Martinez