Inversion

Trust is a cat. Hypervigilant,
ears erect, tail-atwitch, paws prepared.
Trust is a sketchbook’s last page, charcoal-smudged,
pen-bled outlines from pages once there.
The wind used to whisper its secrets and songs,
but now I hear ghosts on the stairs.
My trust is more questions than stories,
and the questions are half-desperate prayers.  
 
Trust was the raspberry thorns where you tangled,
the way that you laughed and pulled free.
The world was pure wonder – vast, pinpoint, each breath
a whole lifetime I took recklessly.
Trust was the palm trees euphoric, near-breaking
to dance with the storm off the seas.
Trust upsurged and buckled, tectonic, Atlantian – 
lost-world story. Lost part of me.   

Let the gem-sparkle tides sweep my shores clean,
turning stories to questions to sand. 
Let me throb like the sunfall aches into the song
of a million stars cradling the land.
May the inverse of grief still be wonder, like 
the papaya's coral heart in my hands. 
And may kindness still take in the street cats
with a mercy I'll yet understand. 

    - TLE