Risk is the fact that you have to go
not only farther, but deeper; or higher—
often only a tendril of scent to go on, or
whatever it was that woke you from sleep
so you could not return to its arms—
Impossible to do anything else but
discard old skins; to give yourself
to the flickering pulse in the lilac,
some dark eye in the leaves
that watches, and does not blink.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.