Gaia

It breathed with us in the dark
here in the bed we reclined upon
the nest where you dreamed me your mother
in fitful frigid nights.
Like your sleep I held you then
close upon my breast
and it fluttered with each eye opening closing shut
and each slow stroke of your hair.
It came upstairs with us
the breath upon our laughter
the sadness in my smile
the quiet in your eyes, calm I'd not yet seen.
The smoke of the kettle
housed it traipsing hurriedly, damp and sweet,
and I felt it cling to my hair
as I gulped darjeeling and perused the movies in the paper
and it caught along your jaw
so that I wanted to put your face between my hands
and steal that particular air from you
(so maybe I did; a simple enough thing).

You are a little broken, I guess,
so you would have me know before
I waltz in your house
and nimbly dance back out again
leaving you melancholy on the couch.
I am fragmented too
little pieces scattered everywhere--
in the swift streaming gusts of the birds
and their wooded calls and songs
lost gusting in the brooks
in triumphant strung-together notes that knot knead weave
through their hall into my stomach's depths.
Their nexus, their guileless inexorable meeting,
the resulting grand masoned bricked and mortared creation
and their inert and somnolent ecstasy
(if only for a little while)
is what followed me
the evening before your departure.
I am a gypsy
in all ways but their cunning;
those shiny mirror bits of you that are left over
glinting and taunting in the snow
I will stuff into my skirt pockets.
Whistling up the bleak winter road
we will be the flashing colors on my blouse,
the picture reaching you far far away
in a lost back page of the newspaper.