Gazes

I go down to the edge of the field
               to be met by a gaze;

                             to be met.

It sounds like a bell, clear and sharp,
                               across my distances.

to cut through my better knowing.

Now I’m taken into the twilight.
                        now the dark earth
                                 spreads stillness between us

                                                       as if I could                   reach
myself again,
                                     unformulated:

how I looked
     under your gaze.
                       How I returned it

like an animal?
But I am, not as well as
– but only.

                       I’m unlearning the human

         going back to when I was

                             unready,

                                                 laid bare.

Gazes

I dilate with it
                         absorbed into dusk.
                                                 Feel the watching
                             erase my edges, until

         I can't be picked out
against the trees.

I’ll stand here
              earning
                     the old feelings back –

until I see everything through a fear
            soft as bordering lashes,
a trembling frame.