We fit like zig-zags,
serrated teeth
biting in opposite directions.
We gnashed our hungry ghosts
and lashed electric DNA
on time’s angry barbed-wire fence,
calling all the cockatoos
to our sleeping tree.
The child is the one who stayed,
bending the branches low
and, with her pink disarming chirping,
demanded the moon obey
and set her a place at our table.
We carried her in our teeth
and sometimes growled
because we didn’t fit right
and had to learn the hard way.
I carried the strings in one hand,
zig-zagging the patterns to hold her.
It was a hollow breathless cradle,
and sometimes the strings bit my skin.
You are here, now, a hand—older,
weathered on the edges
of hardships.
Mistakes knocked you down
and scraped your knees.
I cursed your stubbornness.
Our differences are still obscene.
You catch the other half of the thread
and promise her the moon again,
and I let you. It’s time;
I’ve finished this sad song.
We weave silently like spiders,
together—
heavy with unshared secrets,
catching her in a web of dreams.
© Psyche Marks 2018