place your hand under my skin
slide your fingertips between the soft sheets of flesh
where smooth parchment and spine
are littered with forgotten words
and cuneiform
that spells your name

That you would turn to me in the night
                in sleep
that you would clasp me then
                while I, awake,
                                wondered at the magic of it

A witching hour
                when you gifted me your waking soul
                                warming the cold sheets

The lonely street outside
                the whine of the police car, vivid flashing blue wail
                                the street sweeper sailing on the river Styx
                                                shiftworkers whirling past on broomsticks

That I was caught in your sleeping arms silent
                in the deep of your sleep
                                I was not alone then
                                                because in sleep
                                                                you had turned toward me

Three slices of golden light
butter yellow upon a fairy sea
gone with one slap
of the wind witch’s icy palm
and the monstrous sea
erupts in a green tinged roar

Three raging kelpies
great silver fins churning
flashing manes flying
mad gallop to the shore

A mossy giant scales the crumbling stone walls
amidst the chilly tumult another flails and falls
the water sprites leap and shriek

I felt your ghostly breath
warm at the corner of my eye
a touch coasts across my cheek
spectral fingers slip into my hair

I know what I was given then
while the gloaming pressed
and clouds roiled and whipped across the grey, wild sky
the memory of your magic
in the fragile remaining shards of light