Poetry Reading

In my open shoulder bag,
the second dream
from my third night with you.
It is wrapped in satin taken
from the step of a tomcat on the sill in the dark.

That night,
clocks were lit and lined my book shelf like roosting dawn.
I was a caravan crossing your skin,
wearing borrowed Moroccan prayers
and dizzy as a thief after a chase.
I have grown my hair long, since then,
yet still it contains only certain birds, rising suns, water cups--
never the Saint Creolan medal you wore every day
when we were together. 

In my open shoulder bag,
there are patchouli leaves and musk.
I will read them to seventeen people from a small stage,
and describe in dunes what I felt that night--
our third, and the second dream I had
while resting in your arms; a baked curve of horizon
with heat lines rising 
like waterbirds taking flight 
from each glorious thorn of our entwined mirage.
______

for Karin's "April Second" prompt at Toads.