“Draw the curtains

but leave the window open;

let the fingers in the breeze

slide across your back…”

Gray days demand a lyric, and Mark Burke has written a beautiful one about love and the break of dawn. Print out the broadside here, or enjoy “I Heard the Voices” in plain form below.

 

 

 

I HEARD THE VOICES

by Mark Burke

 

Draw the curtains

but leave the window open;

let the fingers in the breeze

slide across your back.

It is time for the weaving dance,

when we come back from rehearsing the past,

the hour before the roosters

scold the dark and the dogs

begin their crying songs.

It is the time when the light begins

to spread the thighs of night into day,

when the birds call to the light,

flakes of song drifting

as you slide closer

and rub twice against the heart of me,

hum the wordless song,

the light of your eyes flashing

across the stream between us.

 

———————-

Mark Burke’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the North American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Sugar House Review, Nimrod International Journal, and many other publications.

You can also find this poem on Medium.

 

True stories. Honestly.

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