I.
i dream of nightingales,
soft whispers on the wind
ready to crescendo,
to fall and maybe rise up again.
my dreams are nightingales.
She liked nightingales, and,
my sister remembers Her alone,
my dreams are nightingales
and i am not yet ready to leave them.
they used to be robins
with their soft red bellies;
too dark to be rust,
too light to be blood.
He used to be red,
cotton armor clanking, sword raised
to the cobalt blue sky, ready
to strike like a hawk to its prey.
a crow to its nest.
there used to be a girl
that would weave poppies
and roses and lilies, carnations and azaleas
into a tangled braid.
She did not like nightingales.
still my flighty, flickering
golden
dreams are nightingales.
II.
i want to take their hands,
boy of blood and girls of song.
i would rise again, laugh again
beg again
to be with them and be happy.
we wanted to win, to play
a game we were meant to lose and revive.
to retrieve and reconquer.
and when i saw Them, when we were
together i laughed, and
my nightingale sang a hymn of fortune. and my
boy cloaked in red, red almost the unforgiving
shade of blood dried over time
carried us on home.
and She would weave,
braid and cut up words
in her hair.
i tried to learn to sing, to stretch
to pray to the gods of
hawks, eagles, falcons and crows.
i tried for my sisters,
my nightingales.
and i left a feather for my brother
as i was dragged into the air.
III.
i need to hold their hands, again
to remind them once found.
bring them back under the shade,
under the lark's lantern in the willow tree.
i wish to hear my nightingale,
my blood and braid.
i will shake their sparse rations,
real beneath the unfamiliar wrinkled prunes
of my hands.
and i will remember.
i will remember the nightingale.
i will hound after
the girl with the braid and,
the boy with a broken sword.
i am not yet ready to leave them.
i cling to fogging dreams,
attempting to be empty.
forgotten,
but if only to see You again.
if only to braid bells back into your hair.
to hear your voice, a harsh and melodic song.
and to take your wrists away,
to lower the sword and simply
fly with You again.