Wire-walking

Your smooth ampersand curves
glowed when wire-walking,
taut like the ‘v’ in love.
Living on a tiny island, we lit
our backgrounds luminous
with words. All the colours; lime
green, purple, yellow
were slicked in doorway lights.
Letters tethered like grounded kites
on a brick-lined rainy city night.
The sound of your falling
Was muffled and brittle —
sweet, transient, you slipped
through the wires and spiraled,
descending past perspective,
dissolved like rice paper
or rainbow drops. I still hold
our letters; fly them each dry night.
Chinese lanterns in the dark.