Hum for the Bolt

It could of course be silk. Fifty yards or so

of the next closest thing to water to the touch,

or it could just as easily be a shaft of  wood

crumpling a man struck between spaulder and helm.

But now, with the rain making a noisy erasure

of this town, it is the flash that arrives

and leaves at nearly the same moment. It’s what I want

to be in this moment, in this doorway,

because much as I’d love to be the silk-shimmer

against the curve of anyone’s arm,

as brutal and impeccable as it’d be to soar

from a crossbow with a whistle and have a man

switch off upon my arrival, it is nothing

compared to that moment when I eat the dark,

draw shadows in quick strokes across wall

and start a tongue counting

down to thunder. That counting that says,

I am this far. I am this close.