\ est bleue

The world is orange, like a midnight pumpkin,
and I am gathering dew from the fairy drops,
the tatters of my jeans soaking up the grassland monsoons.

The pinpricks of light occasionally wink, and fly off,
show themselves to be impostors of stars and planets,
forcing me to rename my constellations, restart my count.

I wish upon a firefly and sigh, oh, you always do it differently
the second time you try, or say so, nonetheless,
in the full light of day, years, years down the road you've chosen,
so many wishes upon a life ago, when the princesses seemed so brightly eyed
in their moments of truth,
as though those life changing decisions could only be made in the daisy hue of youth.

The carriage door catches against the rail,
and I turn to her and smile,
pull the batteries out of my watch,
the solutions always so simple in the tales we tee-to-tell.

There are 1,000 dances and I don't-do-a-one-a-two-or-three,
though I a-dore the tiny twirling shapes and names of figurines
frozen in hora portraits and tarantella lais,
the flowing skirts and slippery slippers,
the ogee shoulders and glassy sways,
endless rows of commas, unbroken by a need to ever stop.

The cobblestone gives way to brick,
the tack turns into steel.

I have stayed up this entire night, just waiting for the morning,
I will need when I NEED to need, and not a moment sooner.

Over a forest, over a moon, a valley and a river,
the world is orange, a midnight pumpkin
that I am tumbling after.