“When I am with you, we stay up all night,
When you’re not here, I can’t get to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.” -Rumi
On Our Backs
by Dorian “Paul D” Rogers
When we were infants
I crawled on the other side of the world.
My mother assumed I was inching to her.
I was beckoned by the clicking of your tongue
against the roof of your toothless mouth when words
were mountains my weak limbs could not scale.
Unable to get to you yet,
I gave up and tumbled,
humbled
on my back.
Life lashed us with its cat o’ nine tails.
On my tenth life, I have already lived the nine of cats’ tales.
We both lost so much before we met
so it is no coincidence that we discovered us and hoarded each other.
We whirl together unresistingly because this world
will continue to knock us
on our backs.
In expansive fields
we stare down stars like stairs
to see if we or the cosmos blink first
I think I saw a twinkle which means we won.
You and I and the fields are one
while we disappear in each other
on our backs.
After climaxes
we both day dream the infinite denouements.
No clothing but fully shrouded in the warmth
that lover’s harness. Come start a campfire with me at the foot of the bed.
If we can only build the energy to stand
since we are cemented
on our backs.
In elder years,
lay beside me on my death bed.
Share my last breath.
When it is our time
lay us side by side
six feet under the earth’s epidermis
dearly departed to start anew,
we will return where we started
on our backs.
