All the Lovers in the Night

Rainbow light off a silver disk,
Chopin’s Nocturnes like gears.
Her fingers reach across the air
To grab the notes she hears.

Ne Laissez Pas; please don’t leave.
The colours and their lines
Are where we find the memories
Of parts we left behind.

Hugging scraps they threw away—
Messy piles of feeling,
Invisible until they hit
Bodies bent and reeling.

The window shows a flash of face,
Reflection in the light,
An image that begins to blend
For lovers in the night.

He cracked her body open wide,
There’s nothing there to see,
But light that stretches out to space—
Beams in a charcoal sea.

Ne Laissez Pas; please don’t leave.
The colours and their lines
Are where we find the memories
Of parts we left behind.

The window shows a flash of face
A mirror of her eyes.
With pen in hand she writes some words
That wander through the night.

Ballad inspired by: All the Lovers in the Night, Mieko Kawakami