The Vanish of Time

She climbs to cast her slant shadow.
The cliff, like a clock face,

bears the darkling arm of her ascent,
love, its perplexing roughness,

its ledges of nest and cedar fissures,
drinks each little death

in dry showers of purchase lost.
The up-blue whirls, ever drawn of wingspan,

scuffed here and there with white tufts of severance.
Up where reach precedes avalanche

and to be is to fall farther, harder
than all,

she is there, turning from rock to air
and she is here, weightless in my arms.

Email: Alacrity Stone

Return to Table of Contents