Pilot of Ponycarts

by Melita Schaum

Alone in the unnameable, inarticulate dark, a girl is writing because she has been forbidden to speak. A girl scratches in the lamplight all the tenderness of detail, the wand of her pen drawing a circle of yellow peace in a house of misdirected violence.

How lightly he cupped his hands beneath me when for the fourth time I had smashed my head against the cabin's lintel. Babe, he said softly, babe. Later, the crackle of twigs catching, the deep blaze reddening the stone. The air glowed like a sphere of bright speech. Our lungs, our laughter burned with it.

Alone at night, my mouth tastes of grief and song: love's octaves. Interesting that fugue is both a memory disorder and a piece of music. I trace arpeggios of space between us, play the dumb bed's rich, concordant blank. Outside, a storm swells in the belly of the sky. Trees are night's thighs, and between them desire's leaping stars.

I am tired of measuring my words, measuring my wounds. Love is a generous continent. We steer by stars across the surrounding, empty water. Compass me, I want to say to him. Where we go from here is pure invention.

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