The Shortest Night

I went into the forest searching for fire inside pleading wood, but I can’t say for how long I was moored between worlds. I heard a magpie’s rumination, but I don’t know if its wings lifted the moon or let it drift slow as a little straw boat set ablaze on a winding river. I learned the yellow-eyed wolf is a dog & a man. A small boy with a star pinned to his sleeve was hiding among thorn bushes, or it was how the restless dark wounded the pale linden tree outside a Warsaw apartment. Night crawls under each stone quick as a cry held in the throat. All I remember is my left hand was holding your right breast when I forced my eyes shut. Then I could hear something in the room, magnanimous but small, half outside & half inside, no more than a song— an insomniac’s one prophecy pressed against the curtains, forcing the ferns to bloom.