Cicada shell

Elephants tiptoe time’s twisting invitation.
They know a full footprint there means to forget.

As you drew them into being and forgot them.
As the shadow of a word is its own weird requirement.

The stuff of days is what’s available
In the air, the chimney swifts of thought

Where inside night’s mortared column each
clings to the smallest difference of surface.

I scramble across air’s planes to get
Particles closer to you

Like emptiness I’m thick with longing
And thin in grip