poem 213 of a poem a day for 2012

the Moon has me in Her nostril-howled salt flats

to find your elixir

in the Sun

your body needs

to be a canvas at night

having been pelted

with molecular surrender  

all through the day

pinned to a coronal mass

ejection of crossroads

altar-burning the incense

of every roadside

you’ve been attracted to

you need to stop and ask

for directions back

inside yourself

you ask out loud

to the bobble-head gyroscopes

in your cupped handed hopes

what are the dashboard lighthouses

peering, veering into

where am I

a seductive voice

from the disembodied dark

you have wandered in to

renders you helpless

with its rhapsody and

you know at once

that you don’t mind

bleeding out here

you are where you want to be

every moment you stop

to ask me that question

so even if you can’t see

yourself to find the road

you’re on, your hands

are never far

from the turn

of my wheel

from everything

you can steal

back to your soul

from the ways my skin

holds you down

to trace a calculus of rust

into a dark map

of wings, waiting

EJR ©