theft

I wanted to steal it away sudden in the summer-pulsing night,
racing silently through the lurking shapes of apple trees
with their dream hints of grim fruit,
my black form lending substance to their shadows.
I would enter your house, air
roiling and dim with heat
at the bottom of the well of sleep,
and climb the creaks of steps
up to your miniature lair.

Your door is cracked like an egg,
delicately poised,
trembling with the intent
night movements of air through the house.
You float darkly still in the boiling air,
among the tangled palenesses of sheets.
But my capture makes no notice
of these or other iniquities –
my grasping hand absolves you.

In the stairwell’s thick ether I stand Aztec for a moment,
but once outside bolt unevenly for the undergrowth,
your little heart, so swollen in its blackness,
knocking against my palm.