our love is sometimes like a large pond with only two ducks

Light kisses and imprints itself upon our cells 

as culture records the past and future 

on sheet after sheet of sleep. 

 

In one recurring dream, we are late for a ballet, 

shadowed under a boiling moon across icebergs. 

In another, our black walnut tree keeps bombardiering 

 

its little brains out, trying to split the heavens wide open. 

All liquid remembers where it came from, thus is song. 

You were sad that rainy evening, so I drank 

 

happiness enough for us both. Our love 

is sometimes like a large pond with only two ducks. 

I remember opening you 

 

into words, gently, with a single question. 

You were a vision and I the lightning. 

Wind, thrashing 

 

hurricane. All desire 

locked in the body's ancient water is sweet, 

I believe. As it's never what a lover says, but the melody. 

 

To listen to any rain is the history of love 

in love with thick, wild grain. Even 

when the thunderstorm keeps changing its tune. 

 

Cymbals, drums. A half-ton 

branch lands in a far street of four a.m. car alarm 

symphonies. In darkness, 

 

at a border that defines two 

dreams, someone 

mumbles another's name, falling 

 

into a pair of stiff, crushed 

wings long and far into morning. 

 

[Ed Bok Lee, 'Electrical Storm', from Mitochondrial Night]