we were standing in the sky, and she was singing. i’d expected it be cold, but felt no chill. my ears were ringing. on earth, her voice was shrill, but here her tones were tempered by the air, its thinness, its restless roving rivers of reverberation–in this slow cyclone her song took on a soft and sensual susurration.
she sang of dusty devils and of angels formed in smoke, of clouds breath-shaped into dragons and faces, of seeds carried careful to far-off places, of whipping up the sand to scold the sphynx who walked and spoke. she sang, and i listened, drifting west to flee the dusk. i inhaled her history as much as her musk. how many times it would have fallen night and raised to dawn, i do not know; in that current i was captive, castaway and convert, basking in the glamour of her glow.
it was jarring when she quit. i found myself fallen before i felt her release–i couldn’t contain it. how could such a surfeit of sensation cease? on strange ground i struggled to stand, thick and gravid, and called out, “is this all we were worth?” from above and away came a breeze, bright and avid: “air must stay with air, my suitor. earth belongs to earth.”