when asked to reverse

You've broken my neck and in rigor mortis I pirouette onto the table

You eat from my exposed belly

"eat my belly" I whine

Your cat tells me "no whining, and especially no wine"

I cry

And I sweat profusely as cats become rabbits and rabbits become maestros at the violin

My tears wet the hard unforgiving marble floors

They begin to give though

Bit by bit

And we are sucked into the darkness

I awake in the grassy bed of a rolling field that sways in that pre thunderstorm wind

You know that summer wind

The wind that reminds you that there's some greater power out there whether you believe in god, Krishna, Muhammad or just the truth that the leaves will always turn and the sky will always fall asleep and awaken

I can't help but run

I run and look for your hand to hold but I don't think you followed me into that darkness

You could be in that dry desert next door where we only know of that one oasis

You could still be in the cultural institute that is as hot as that neighbor Sahara

I run

I think of my father shaking his head as he yells that it isn't safe to run into storms

But I yell to him

To you

To the whipping branches 

That I'll only be safe if I keep running

My feet and my bum heels will outrun the storm 

This summer fury

This summer reminder of a time when cats and rabbits were more than small creatures

But towering beasts of imagination

Run until my feet bleed, and my muscles tear

I don't care I have tiger balm

I'll hold the feather in my hand as a substitute for your hand

If I can't be a maestro of the lines of your palms

I'll be the maestro of the breath of air that licks my face and grooms my ears

I'll play the perfect harmony of the space between this field and the desert oasis in which you're currently relieving yourself

My father never said that summer stops would be glorious

But relief of all kinds is glorious at the moment of impact

I let my feather bow guide me as the storm of childhood nostalgia chases me through this new meadow that I remember as only a whisper

You whispered it into my ear that night we looked for the hole you said was limitless

I remember

I purred back that holes can't be limitless because don't they all end in china

You stayed quiet and crooked your ears to me as I perceived a tiny but unmistakable wiggle in your body

You answered in that small voice you use when all you want is a piece of almond chocolate

"In your pocket

hole in your pocket"

I put my hand in that hole and found my way to this memory of this meadow

A meadow surrounded by spruce

or elm

or some other old sentinel

But I quiver and I shake and I steal the stars as night's darkness surrounds me

A feather never can replace a hand

And the wind will only guide me so far

Until this grass bed becomes open air

And I find myself falling into this over complicated dance one more time