catastrophic waltz

i swerved because i mistook
the shadows of the trees
for bodies dancing in the parking
lot last night--
hips bumping carts in their corals--
laughing with the thin
hair of plastic bags-- they suffocate
each other-- sit in the infant
seats & race up & down
the parking lot as if it were still
the grocery aisles--
their catastrophic waltz
a wish of death by headlights--
it was that kind of illusion of
bodies that reminded me of us
& how so much of our lives
is a collision of our
shadows on a windy night
on the cusp of irrevocable summer--
i have been thinking about
god a lot lately-- i have been
trying
to put a face to an idea--
sometimes i think of them as
the breath that hurtles 
our shadow bodies into each other
through the limbs of the trees--
aligns his spine 
on the double yellow stripes
of the parking lot only when it's
ten o'clock & i'm at the supermarket
in an attempt to feel less
lonely-- he the neck of a street light--
bent orchid-like & full of
light-- he is the silver-dollar
moon pressed into the palm 
of the night sky-- dangled
to stretch our shadows-- taller
& taller-- reach & become
another tree torso waltzed in
the window--
pull out your hair in fist fulls 
& toss it behind the supermarket
like feathers--
the ice cream is melting
in the back seat of my 
chewing gum-green 
toyota but we're running out
of time to connect the dots in
the stars-- i image that it's a sort of
of constellation puzzle--
threading your fingers through the stars
far enough & you can construct your
own vision of god-- 
she wears stars like bells on
her hips & believes in living in
collision-- oh do you remember
when i asked you if you believe
in god? 
i think we all dread the question &
it's unwise to try to love
someone without feeling each other's discomfort
with the brevity of our shadows-bodies
dangled lightly like
wind chimes in the trees--
if i were to be honest i would tell
you that somedays i don't believe
our bodies separate enough
for me to answer that question for myself 
so i ask you again 
do you believe in god?
& our waltz is a catastrophic
evasion of the question--
& god tilted her neck in the street
lamp & god chuckles is the crinkle
of plastic bags--
& the ice cream is melting
in the back seat-- i tell the shadows
it's time to go home & they 
pirouette beneath the belly
of the car--
next time you dance stay out
of the headlights--
i like your body as it is--
un obliterated by light--
do you believe god makes our
shadows?-- stretches them &
uses the window to make them
collide & sway on the 
side street-- 
the ice cream is melting
& so is your shadow &
so are the trees &
dropped is the moon
from a shaky palm god
we both firmly want to 
believe in--