A Thousand Ways (The Aurora Borealis poem)

listen,

the aurora borealis...

(hold that thought)

I would use words in a thousand ways to call you out.

I would try to trick you:

Come quick, three men in trout boots smoking pipes

are flocking your lawn with pink flamingoes

I would coo to you:

I say "how can I play with you and you are in there?"

You say "how can I play with you and you are out there?"

I would shout to you:

Christ, Rapunzel, open the damn door!

I would wax melodramatic:

Your distance is a basin so vast it holds

all my life's tears

I would be sexy:

My fingertip brushes your wet lips,

like so and, ever so lightly, I graze

these shivery places...

I would wane mystical:

In exactly the way that to exist and to not exist are the same;

so to exist with you and to exist without you are the same

cliche:

I'd swim the rivers of the earth to reach

the pools of starlight in your eyes

obtuse:

My neural pathways are stimulated to excessive

negative flux by your proximate yet inaccessible locus

truthful:

I love what little I know of you

I'd use words in a thousand ways to excite you,

intice you, delight you, ignite you, impress you,

caress you, possess you...

undress you

a thousand ways,

to call you out

but listen, listen,

listen,

the aurora borealis

makes no sound.

Donny Davis, June 2007