When the stars are somewhere behind the moodiness of the clouds
When I wake suddenly from sleep into deep darkness,
the drawn curtains admitting no glimpse of light
(stars and moon both covered over) for a moment I hope –
'Are you beside me here, was it all a bad dream, are you
somewhere close where I can touch you?' as I reach out. But,
behind the quick joy, the irrational leap in the chest, there come
the cold whispers of truth, shedding a light not of stars – voicing
moodiness, fear, despair, gradually insisting on the hard fact
of loss, of absence, telling me: Your hands in the dark will find only
the illusion of a body in lumpy blankets ... a lie ... an emptiness.
Clouds are not more evanescent than these false, glorious moments.
The title is a phrase written by Sanaa Rizvi. The poem is a word acrostic, each line beginning with a word from this title.
Written for day 3 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads': Late night conversations with the Muse.