Blue Memories

You breathe the germ
of sleep; the streelight
by the window spewing sodium-vapour
taping your features orange.

Curled up on the floor
beside the bed, I watch
the orange tape glow bright
over your naked shoulder, your lithe arm,
your breath congealing
silence between
us. Between

those two feet from the floor
to the bed. Outside in the night's
spring, by the windowsill,
a sea of rolling leaves:
their dancing shadows
between your shoulders and
my feet.

Father Time ticks away the ginger burnish
to a bulging blue, a concatenation
of blues – as if I were underwater
and the schizophrenic sunlight split
into a sea of blues, as if the shadows
of leaves turned into mere fish swimming
past me, as if my feet were really fins
and my fingers did not exist.

Dawn breaks the window, shatters
the warm sulphuric glow: shadows palpitate
as I turn to stone – neither human
nor fish – no hands or fins - and become
just a memory
in your breathing present.