We should have closed the window
before we became shadow puppets.

You held the flash light and I told
you I wanted to grow bigger--
wanted to take everything
inside me that was murk and 
midnight bleed
myself out into wolves or
bear skulls or the sprawled fingers 
of a red tail hawk attempting 
flight off of a white dorm room wall.
You held my hands
and shadow-kissed me 
quiet-- don't turn off the flashlight
we'll be nothing but the goats heads
and elephant trunks of our own hands--
I'm scared of the shadows we keep
in our hands. Your hands are always
so much bigger than mine--
how many bears do you keep 
growling under your knuckles 
and in the creases written in your palms.
We had the twilight taken
in our double-helix spins--spun
in between the dusk of our own bones.
Catch the hawk shadows! Quick!--
before they 
escape out the open windows 
and sneak under 
street lights-- stalk passers by 
and find their way into 
our neighbor's living rooms--
eat the pinwheel peppermints from the crystal
bowls waiting in their vestibules--
The hawks wipe their talons on
welcome mats-- stain themselves
in streaks of sun-silver and 
flecks of black gold.
We have left our hands in all 
our neighbors  living rooms 
in elephants and wolf jaws
and the shadow-lines of our 
own ribs bound around our chests.
These puppet cages contained by blankets.
I don't want to I lose my hands again.
Help me find them between
the pin-pricks-- the thimble-top star dome--
we can grab them when they try to sulk across 
the moon's scowling face.
I know this is what happens
when you play shadow puppets with someone.
I knew I should have learned how
to make beasts alone with my
own flashlight or in the safety of the sun
and the asphalt.
You became the sun.
Gold and dim and you pulled
all the darkness from under my fingernails
and out from the corners
of the closet where all the shadows
eat sun flower seeds while they wait
from the daylight to pass
over head-- where they wait
for lovers
to make each other's hands into puppets--
take my hands and roar wild
in my fingers.
Oh! I knew you were the other
wing of my red tail hawk-- 
will our hands come back through the window?
Leave it open, leave it open
I know they will at least need
to return to the closet.
Oh love ee became shadow puppets and
you said I had always looked
like the silhouetted of a rabbit
when I stood sideways.
I have mistaken all my lovers
for the skulls of bears.
Sit here in the closet with me and
fumble for our hands-- step over
the sunflower seeds and we 
can sleep next to each other
smothered between the shoulders of
everyone's shadows.
Make shadow puppets with me.
We'll keep the window closed--
watch hawks sulk across the moon.