Moonlight on the Wound

All night you came returning—not in the way of arrivals...the way rain comes, the way fever comes, the way a forgotten song suddenly blooms on the tip of the tongue.

Eyes wet with tears laughed in whispers—someone lit a candle in the dark and left, the flame trembling but never dying, will never die, because the very wind that wants to extinguish it keeps it alive.

That light of sorrow burned alone through the night. Pain swayed and cast shadows on the wall—in the shape of your face, the curve of your lips, that half-closed afternoon of your eyes.

From somewhere a flute began to play. The note was familiar—and yet I'd never heard it this way, like hearing your own name in another's voice for the first time and gasping.

Today that note called out your name, and the call became memory, circling inside my chest—the way trapped air circles in a broken house, searching for the way out, finding none, yet never ceasing.

Then the moon of memory descended into the courtyard of my heart—where once there was celebration, now only emptiness dries in the sun. Moonlight spilled across the wounds, each wound—all the ones you left behind, each one touched by light, each one ignited; it seemed the wounds remembered your touch more than skin could.

And some madman wandered the blind alleys all night—perhaps me, perhaps that part of me that loved you and could never return. Some voice drifted in—from far away, from near, from within, from deep inside bone—I couldn't recognize it, or wouldn't?

All night you came returning, and eyes wet with tears simply laughed—as if weeping and laughter share one body, one wound, one night, one you.