A distance greater than sun

when the serpent motive
sets my soles upon its path
and brings the ghosting heels
down from elevated branches
with a powdery thump
once more into the avenues of time
only then I may return

riding on the cape
of a river's ceaseless rushing
to its ouroborical inception
I have perched upon its wheel
my cells, free of abacus
passing ever more so
through the corridors in which
others delicately engineer their gardens

so quietly in step
and startling the ears
who could not hear my approach
or in the pale, flourescent veins
of grocery isles, fetching
shapes of nourishment
that leave my blood like rain
the shuffling of celluloid
from scenes of momentary flight
overlook my hours
like the jury in your pewter eyes
that seem a distance
greater than the sun

the locus of my soul
adrift within this azure atmosphere
threads a vacant decade  
in the gloaming
as if threshing stalks of heather
with a stranger's scythe
a single note of summer
boiled from my blood
damp and pink on teenage skin
spilled on spiny desert tongues
never has it met the wayward ends
as tightly as this gaze

I am only you reflecting
with abandon and protection
while the mirror idles
in a lonesome room
tiring of arrows
thrown towards its shore
as a ragged vessel
weary of the legacy of names
withdraws, in winter conversations
steaming out to sea
and I await, wondering
if solace on the rings of Saturn
is an exile
worthy of redemption