What you see is half of me.
Over the other half
invisible wings are lifting.
I find myself in a crowded little shop
toward which some friends are strolling up a hill
with inconceivable slowness. You’re not there.
Perched on a compost heap of artifacts
to stroke or store, to covet or cast off,
I run my fingers over a leopard skin.
The hill is steep. My friends keep not arriving.
Impatient, I reach for my phone
and touch instead inside its little case
a cowrie shell and then a heart-shaped stone.
The cluttered second-hand shop on a lonely hill;
the leopard skin draped over the back of a chair;
the fingered cowrie shell; the heart in stone.
My true love hath my heart and I have his.
What you see is half of me.