A DEMON'S SESTINA OF A DYING MAN'S DREAM

His infant self, fruited from a flower
Of memory, suckles in this dream
Where he believes that he is made from night;
That until he opens up his eyes
A universe is waiting in the wings
More real than this soft breast against his fingers.

In childhood's splashing touch of spring, he fingers
Petals on an unpicked perfect flower.
So happily he tugs the fleshy wings
And tumbles through tall grasses in the dream,
That space, aroused, races past his eyes
And time is but a rush of day and night.

He springs across the days; he swims each night,
And stars whirl easily inside his fingers
While phases of the moon flow through his eyes.
And when at last the summer sun does flower,
He vaguely sinks into the growing dream
And forced to manhood, wishes he had wings.

Not feathered eagle wings, but bat-like wings
Held wide to ride the vespertine hot night,
To hide above the distraught summer dream
Of ugly truths, and rules, and pointed fingers,
Where jolting reflections of molotovs flower
In another's eyes -- a woman's eyes.

When wooded, scented autumn comes, he eyes
Her dancing toward his heart (it rustles like wings
Of birds). He longs to thrust her thigh-borne flower
And comb her whispering hair with sparkled night,
But night and stars and love slip through his fingers,
Just as aging autumn leaves the dream.

He walks the bitter dying winter dream;
Cold memories like ghosts before his eyes.
Sudden whispers cause his shaking fingers
To clutch at time, and time, unfettered, wings
Its way through space. His face, a withered flower,
Is flung against the longest empty night.

The dream is done -- his changeling soul takes flower:
His wakened eyes see slightest moves of night.
His fingers have become the ribs of wings.