On the Brink     

She knows the art of lying still, 
sleeping with the invisible in the windless 
dark and bedded warmth of night. 

She knows the little hauntings, the old scenery 
waiting in the wings, the moon on a thread, 
the slow swing of the year. 

She knows how to wait with the cicadas 
for seventeen summers and sing without promise 
until the white weather of dreams. 

She knows childhood's land of sticks and stones, 
fluid days, and how to lie in snowy fields 
leaving behind corpses of angels. 

She knows how the old spend their days 
arranging comb, brush and last night's 
news while moonlight seeps through windows. 

She knows when the tide comes in, waves 
lapping at her feet, and she 
on the brink of everything she does not know.