Endless

The ceiling pulls itself closer in my room
and the moonlight abscess casts a blue
hue on every cold corner, the stars
leaning in to look through the window, eyes
following the spinning, hissing record
in circles, hands marching around my watch.

The T.V. is dead but there's plenty to watch
through the window of my warm room,
friction from the slow, steady grind of the record.
Sunlight snakes in to rest atop the blue
sheets on the bed and cautiously eyes
the approaching dusk and its menagerie of stars.

They arrive on tired wings, and these new stars
count the small notches on my watch,
the fatigue of their flight weighs heavily on their dark eyes.
The final scales of sunlight slither into another room,
forked tongues flicking, tasting for the blue,
hissing in tune with the needle on the record.

Something falls and breaks, skips the record
and startles the feathered sleep of the stars,
their brittle wings twitch in anticipation of the soft blue
horizon crawling out of the hills. They watch
me quietly from their perches around the room,
a pleading for rest beating against the backs of their black eyes.

I can't get them out of my head, those eyes, her eyes, my eyes.
I maintain the circadian rhythm through flipping the same record
and pacing from end to end of the narrow, shrinking room.
Maybe the music helps lessen the weight of these stars
as they spread softly sparkling wings and wearily watch
as the fierce serpents of light snake through thin blinds from the blue.

I almost remember where she lay on the bed, her mood as blue
as that impatient morning sky, as ocean-distant, ocean-deep as her eyes.
I almost remember where I sat, maybe across the room, to watch
her as she woke to the sound of the needle being replaced on the record,
the dust from the celestial, crystalline wings of the departed stars,
like dew, clinging to every surface in the warming, narrow room.

I can't leave this room until the fading blue
welcomes back those stars with their timeless, tired eyes
to listen to my record and read the small, white hands of my watch.