Last night, Dawn sensed
you were having a rough one.
So she laced up her boots,
and stepped gingerly out onto the sky.
Tottering at first, on golden legs,
she breathed into the strength of her own centre,
then, after sharpening her edges on the nearest mountain ,
she rushed to you.

She crossed the sky beneath your feet as if she were
an Italian grandmother crossing herself,
a swift and unpremeditated motion, arising
from countless years’ hard-won wisdom.

There were rumblings in the antipodal clouds last night,
because of you,
as the day pounded on its determined course,
somersaulted over the upturned gaze of a terrapin,
relentless. Entire continents
gave up the early hours
to the dolorous sigh of noon,
knowing full well
you were lodged firm in her racing heart.

She arrived, at your door,
her angled blades kicking up a frost,
breathless and keen.
There she was, again,
as we both claim to be so used to by now.

Human beings fail
to show up for each other, time
and time again.
It is the same
with morning: one day her fingers
will falter, her attention will drift off
at the last eyelet,
and her boots will have made their last journey
to your side of the rink.

Do not judge the dawn too harshly:
she whose limbs are sore from their love of you,
she who could not rescue you,
no matter how hard she tried,
but sped across the night
to greet you with what warmth
she had collected along the way.