Runaway

Morning intrudes through the curtains,
my eyes light on the cracking paint of the doorjamb.
The palm of my hand holds my mouth. My prisoner is gone again.
Last night I tried to trap her with my arms and hands.
I held her fast with my words,
I chained her with promises.
She bested me at last with sleep as her accomplice.
Leaving a note held by a dagger,
the same she used to pierce my defense.
That's all it says, I tell myself,
there's nothing to read, and nothing to read into.
How much more simplistic can it be? A laundry list of regrets.
So I dress; casual, but to impress.
I board the ships that ferry through a sea of tar to hunt again.
Dressed to hunt, dressed to kill.
She is where she always is
she's never unpredictable, but so full of surprises.
A man crosses my vision, and in his wake she is gone.
The city rolls away from the sun, I've lost the scent.
Walking back I carry my jacket.
I follow the feet in front of me,
In my lair at last I realize
I am no true hunter.
I am victim of patterns, in a tide of inconvenience.
I am a leaf on a branch of a million leaves.
I had no more caught her than the sun catches the moon.
I eclipsed her, I passed into her radiance.
Obscuring it, challenging it,
but not controlling it.
It may be a long time before I swing through her orbit again.