I walk out to the clothesline.

My skin hangs there inhaling the hail

flying horizontal from the horizon.

I listen to the sound it makes flapping loudly

like a gull whose mate will never come.

I bring my skin in to soften it by the fire.

It is now calm and docile.  I slip it on.

Leave my skin wrinkled.  Don’t iron it out.

A wrinkle holds a library of stories

being read aloud, one by one by Time.

 

I caress the crease of your presence

etched in the fabric of my being. 

White-haired dandelions perk up,

catching a whiff of your scent.  

Your smell carries your steps up the stairs,

through a threshold of tangled fear,

coming gently to nestle within the

porch swing of my stiffened hips. 

 

I kiss the crease your hairline makes in the

open range expanse of your forehead. 

Your eyes come to settle in mine.

Our wrinkled time collides. 

 

We are together again, my love. 

 

This wrinkling of time is gracious in this rumbling of dusk.

And as I turn away to dance with a twilight of stars,

I feel your hand land on my shoulder like a homing pigeon. 

 

The white haired dande-lions roar

wildly unabashed as the stars descend.

Time arches its crumpled spine then

                     disappears.