Four hours

When I fell backwards
in the vestibule of speech,
loud and starched like
an unuttered joke,

the air grew dim.

And as each breath
anesthetized
the night,

I tasted mouthfuls of
torpor.

I knew

a moment of scuffed
quiescence
would suffice

to drench my throat
with radiance;

to hurl me into the midst
of a chomatic whirl.

When I tapped into the
synthesis of resonance and heat,
I took your hand --
we rode the wave.

And the clock had just struck nine.


Copyright ©2009 Anna Piutti

Anew

Submerged by
liquid stillness,

we mute
the looping theme
of recollection.

Be
blank.

Our mirrored strokes
discard
each tingling residue
of turbulence.

Let go:

these pupils
aren't trapdoors.

For once in this glide,
innocence means
voiceless triumph,

and stainless gazes
trigger shifts
in luminescence.


Copyright ©2009 Anna Piutti

In the backstage

It is delicately wild
to lip-sync the movement
of a heart --

there, on the other side,
where no floodlights blind.

Only there does breath prelude
waves more powerful than laughter,

as silence shatters thought
into transparency.

Here, where illusion isn’t praised,
no truth, no flaw is concealed
from the discerning eye.

It is here that I stand,
here to stay,

unmasked

before you.


Copyright ©2009 Anna Piutti

Baptism

Can you feel me?

I’m not the one they used to know.

You’ll find me standing beyond the water wall,
my eyes bearing scars from tainted dreamlands;
my hand reaching out
to touch yours through the icy flow.

May this cold shake me out of my limbo.

Dumbstruck,
misread,
defectively refracted,

I’m now standing behind the water wall,
my heartbeat catching up with me:

may I be redeemed.

Let me feel true light can’t lie, and

time and space will
reconcile

at the confluence of our fingertips.


Copyright ©2009 Anna Piutti

Noise

Layer after layer,
gloom gurgles through
weary senses.
It spreads like oil, and binds to
every atom

to infect,
to obscure.

I find myself second-guessing
the obvious, retracing my steps
a thousand times, lest syntax
betrays me.

And I struggle to broadcast
vital signs through this static;

and I pray
that my truth won’t be too maimed
when it reaches you.


Copyright ©2009 Anna Piutti

Blend

Your stare pours sunshine into me
as a long-awaited rush
connects our heres and nows.

I want to be blood
to irrigate your cells,
and feed delusional eternities
through fleeting flesh.

Now feel us shuddering in unison --
I'm bound to you by warmth.
Inside you I'm made whole.

And consciousness hums
so deafeningly;

from pulse
to pulse
it echoes --

red as wake.


Copyright © 2007 Anna Piutti

Thank you

Tonight's heartbeat
is as joyful as
the intermittent glow
of fireflies:

it plays a frantic game
of hide and seek
with love-filled stares;
it mimics seconds, and

the song of our steps
being poured into
the taste buds
of the earth.


Copyright © 2007 Anna Piutti