One Shot:Too Hot to Sleep

I stand guard over your fitful sleep. Heat rises, mixes with your sweat,
and I watch your fever rage. It's almost midnight.

Planets blink, offer neither clue nor compassion.The hour's breaking shivers
with sound that draws me to the window below the shingled wings
of the sloping roof.

A bird tunes its throat, swells a single pitch from the quavering source.
Shapes from a far branch answer, the motif embellished as if caught in a lie.
Notes loosed into an imitation of flight remind me of all that must not happen
in the dark: a soul slipping away, all vigilance forsaken.

I turn back to you, pulse quick with dotted rhythms,one bird following another
into the guttering shadows.


One Shot Wednesday