The air
held thought like sheep’s wool
on a wire, soft on a
barb, blowing white and blowsy
on a dark thorn.
Gathering it felt like
stripping the silence for my own need
to not be alone,
floating in the bones behind the universe
like a toy balloon used to
bumping and hurrying
along

-the breath of the stars,
the pause of the hours,
the threshold between now
and other, and dreams, 
and the scurrying beetles
of thought.