In Early Morning

The sky is mauve, the leaves are
burgundy and plum, the distant lights are
Marigolds,
with four star spiked petals glowing thick
like oil paint,with
the shallow luminescence of
candle flames burning in the dark.
The silhouette of a body in my bedsheets, black
Wrapped in fabric neatly bunched and
Folded like Egyptian shades.
His eyes the shining black of beetle shells,
my hairline dampened by the labor of dreams,
hands travel as if soothing a skittish mare
loose across my hip and settling
on my rump
and I coo
I am the mare with nostrils flared
he is a dog
and I am his chair.
My neck is the chew marked arm,
the soft white stuffing that he nuzzles with his muzzle.
We are
Overlapping limbs and
dreary eyed kisses barely touching
lips and
my ponytail curled
around his chin,
a husky sleeping in the snow
We are each the other’s yawn
in early morning.


Clara Mae Barnhart