Beautiful Nightmare

I redid a poem.

A lot of it is the same - but the tone is entirely different, and I tweaked it to go with a series of carvings I am making... and it finally feels finished.  

Cardinal Summer (Contortionist)

I swear I expelled you from my heart.

            Willed you out,

            folded close the bomb-shelter door;

            wrapped chains around it -- and locked it tight.

Yet.

In my retreating dream

it is you who call the Cardinal.

Your laughter-tinged
red-winged mating song
unrolls the moss underfoot;
calls spring leaves from bud --

The stirring and the first rays,

the feel of my sleep-heavy arm

around the warm contour of your body;
eyelids fluttering toward open. Soft.

Soft, I rise
to this traitorous new day’s

bird-twitter commentary

on the rising of the sun.