Silver Footprints

Neither masculine nor feminine a powerful 
androgyny like wind surrounding shoulders
of a crowd, drawing in, along, persuasive as scent. 

Bernadine the name of one pair 
of palms and soles entreating me to follow 
the footsteps in the snow, ice silver, 
a soundless crunch, the path broadening, 
the crowd absorbed, a vacuum pulling us 
swirling in lightness, cheeks our only feature
at the corners of smiling. Nothing to see, 
everything seen in the pulse between temples
that rise in acceptance breathing the slow wind
of sleep and the uncurious wafting of letting go. 

Wakefulness puts coaxing arms about me; 
the soles and palms of Bernadine are mine 
resisting return, refusing the pale light of 
open eyes, the sighs of reckoning with day a billows
on the floating, the gradual arrival where 
for another while I have to be.