Aubade, Partly Cloudy

November 2006

That was actually my horoscope the day I wrote this. And I’m really proud of it. The parts in italics started out as a song.

Aurora, do you remember the cave in the mountains
Where we played with sapphire marbles in the dust?

53rd Street sunrise, 6:47 AM, and there’s not much use for it here. The world has
Laid on its winter blanket, muttering to itself of mislaid precipitation,
Tightens up and harasses her flocks of crows into action, turns the thermostat
And reads the paper, “set sights on adventure” the horoscope,

When we awoke alone, the first, in narrowing darkness
And all the rays of the sun were braided in your hair.

Brandishes a sharp blade to the horizon, elects the wild geese
Her ambassadors, nods sagely at the iridescent oil in the slanted light of
Forgetfulness, and opens the howling door. The wind is westerly, 14 knots, and
Tinged with dry leaves, weariness, sulfur dioxide. Helicopter beating against the grain

You laughed and a tangle of sparks, tenderly interwoven,
Ignited a fire in the serpentine valley below.

Toward the woods, humming rips through the frostbitten cloud cover, shale,
Scrapes her feet across the wool, cacophony of trucks, and it jumps as she reaches

You sprang from the gates of the moon with the dawn in your arms.