And You Were There
Aaron Ellis
When my eyes were blind, wound
tight by lashes, locked with twisted hair
like laces knotted twice to bind just right.
I heard your foot tapping.
When my brain alone in quilted corner
conjured living room lights burning bare
beyond the lines of lucid door aglow.
I swung up my feet and fell out of bed.
When my cheeks, elder now, remembered
tender the scratch of carpet tendrils there
beneath the drywall Earth we brothers shared.
I saw you sitting at your desk.
When my teeth chimed shy xylophone pings
for the tongue that, scared, swallowed words
unheard; the lips that, numb, said nothing.