Besotted

The way you fall into a language mid-dream, already fluent.

Dare you, you said. I followed you in.

*

Besotted (adj.): from besot, to make a sot of. A sot is a fool. A fool is someone who follows another into the pines at dusk when the bird is already saying no in its churring repetitive way that has no end to it. I rolled the word around on my tongue.

(To be foolish / to be drunk / to be soaked through by a particular person / the t’s colliding in the centre like two people meeting in a narrow place and neither moving back.)

Your fingers, pulling at the bark.

*

The nightjar: ancient death-bird, goatsucker, ground-nester. Territorial. Territorial. Territorial.

The clearing.

The laughter that fell from you –

I fell into it too

the way you fall

into a language mid-dream,

already fluent.

*

Between the laugh and your hand reaching again:

that narrow place.

Neither moving back.

---