WHISPERS IN THE WITCHING HOUR

 

WHISPERS IN THE WITCHING HOUR

I perch, entranced,

listening to your fifteen-past-midnight stories,

spilled like velvet ribbons

beneath the dim touch lamp’s glow—

its molten gold light dripping,

pooling in syrupy swirls

across the scuffed hardwood floor,

a flickering sentinel

casting jagged shadows

that claw at the walls.

You unravel random slices of memory,

each a shard of stained glass,

glinting like an Ellen monologue—

wry, jagged-edged,

brimming with the tang of nostalgia,

a voice that stitches the past

into a quilt of cracked leather and faded ink.  

That voice cradles me,

raspy as wind scraping through brittle reeds,

sweet as ripe figs bursting

against the tongue,

and seductive—

a siren’s call woven

through the smoke of a dying ember,

curling around my ribs

like ivy on a crumbling stone wall.

It hums through the air,

thick with the scent of cedar and musk,

a lullaby that soothes

the frayed edges of my sleepless soul.  

The tossing of your barely-brown hair,

a torrent of chestnut silk

spangled with flecks of copper

in the lamp’s trembling gleam,

captivates me more than the words.

It’s a wild cascade,

rippling like a river at dusk,

each strand a brushstroke

on the canvas of night—

a living tapestry

that drowns the room in motion,

rendering meaning mute

beneath its hypnotic sway.  

There’s music in your being,

a thrumming pulse

beneath the crackle of your laugh,

the sigh of your breath

like a bow drawn across taut strings.

I whirl in the awe of your aura,

a shimmering veil of stardust

that glints like frost on midnight glass,

its cadence a storm of violins

rising from the hollows of your presence.

The air vibrates with it,

a chorus of unseen crickets

and the rustle of phantom wings,

and I am a moth,

spiraling toward the flame

of your effortless radiance.  

Beside you,

time thickens to molasses,

and I grasp the theory

of basking in simplicity—

how the lamp’s ochre haze,

your hair’s earthy tangle,

the creak of the old oak chair

beneath your shifting weight,

forge a cosmos from scraps.

The night presses in,

its indigo breath fogging the panes,

while your stories bloom

like night jasmine,

their perfume heavy,

petals curling

against the frost-kissed window.  

The clock’s hands stutter,

lost in the haze,

as shadows twist into gnarled fingers

across the floor’s warped grain,

and still I linger,

snared in this midnight reverie.

Your tales flare like embers

in a hearth of blackened stone,

drifting upward in curls of silver smoke,

leaving a warmth

that seeps into my marrow—

a hearth-glow

that wards off the chill