at the same joints, thinned into identical white
cranes. They've waited out the winter nights,

pacing the hallways and whispering songs or the hero's
lines from half-remembered television shows

or radio shows, anything to pass the cold season.
But come June, they're dancing again.

Every midnight I hear them behind my eyes, overhead,
against the hush of traffic and the threaded

scratchings of pigeons in their gutter nests; his heavy
step, her sudden slide to the left, easing into a one two three

one two three, the wind crumpling like parchment
between their legs. In the indolent

darkness I am flat as my mattress, only my breath moving
to the rhythm of their footfalls--I am waiting

for the speed-up, for the pace above me
to quicken to light. Against the dawn they'll be

two white kites circling the thin sky,
casting away unnecessary layers-every lie

told with good intentions, all the sloughed skin
of a lifetime-seeing each other as they've always been.