Janus

I saw the choices there in your palm,

Stark against your light-colored hands,

bold as truth in a quiet room.

Your eyes shone like the sunlit entryway

Of a house at war with urban decay

I felt your invitation like a pull at reason,

Playful and complicated like the riddles of the Sphinx

Communication touch-and-go,

Like a battle against inertia’s pull

A black hole pulling us in,

Insistent on swallowing us whole,

Stars colliding in the darkness of space,

A galaxy screaming in grief,

above our heads.

You closed your palms,

Their scarred truths hidden

Under the magic of your fingertips

Closed to my decisions,

Like a bolted door to my insistent hands.