Fall

Half-asleep,
I fall in and out of your flesh.
We have given birth to Memory.
Listen:
Genealogy is a complicated sentence;
You can hear the sound of loss -
an awkward moan dignified by weeping.
 
How many times have I knocked on your door,
turned back sheets that the sun might rise;
realized inheritance in a fingernail of moon.
 
I run towards your shadow,
believing it will save me.
Loping through the long grass
towards a stone wall where
once
you dreamed
I was naked in chains.

© Billy Marshall Stoneking