legendary (for An---)

you have the look of one fast asleep
but about the anchor of you
left in the dolor of this waking place
the ears of my dreaming pick out the staccato pitterpat
of bare feet on the wet
of the courtyard stones
somewhere
nowhere
in an afternoon rainshower
where little eyes are peering
out
at you
from between the jitterbugging leaves of the garden
and then when you turn
tangled in the sheets
you have the sigh of one dry and defeated
but echoing
in the canyons of your shadow
in the tides of your blood
in the voiceless thunderclaps of your breath
in the bottomless pools at the backs of your eyes
once upon a time
and never
there is hissed the memory of hoofbeats
and heavy drums
and armies marching
where your hungry gaze scarred the world
and i think
as you curl
and bury your face from the moonlight
streaming through the frosty glass
i think i see vast shapeless things
moving
flailing
lurching
dancing
in the shadows beyond your shoulder
skin turned an angry red border
by the blood-glare of the clock
too afraid to smudge the canvas of you
painted red and white
by the brushes of the night
i lay and
see the shapeless things beyond the horizon of you
and hear the war-drums from within the labyrinth of you
and smell the rainstorm behind the dream of you
and and
and
the night is so concentered on the whole of you that i feel
i feel
if you stir
it will blow me apart
and if you wake
i will burn away under your gaze
and if i remain
your armies and your worshipping monsters will drag me away
just another gravestone
in the foundations
of the temples and palaces
constructed in the wake
of your passage
but i cannot even imagine creeping from the bed
stealing to the window
running mad into the night
i am but a footnote
to the legend
of you