Cleverer Tricks than Spinning Straw into Gold

I could pull words out of this moonlight
that would make your throat clench with fire,
set your feet to dancing
and your eyes to wandering.
I know the words to yank kings from thrones,
to burst the rivers from their banks
and unleash the wind.

One syllable from my skipping tongue
set the cows into the corn
so that the farmer’s boy threw up his hands
and ran away to the city,
where a young girl twisted taffy
and watched the door for someone
who smelled like hay and ripe plums
and wasn’t yet stained with smoke.

I shouted nonsense into the dark,
to remind even the stars to be afraid,
and cawed insults at the birds
so they flew into each other.
A riddle at the crossroads,
jokes thrown at the wrong time—
power vibrated around each vowel
and thudded in my consonants.

The world tumbled against my voice;
I sang each morning and broke apart the dawn.
Luck danced with a limp behind me.
Fortune and Fate hid in the alleys
mumbling and weeping over featureless palms
as I stole their prophecy for nursery rhymes.
I wandered with mischief on my mind,
spoke chaos into the world,
and no corner held quiet.

I could pull such words out of this moonlight!
And I admit that I am tempted;
it would be something truly powerful
to stir your heart to trouble,
something out of the ordinary
to take you from mundane to magical,
from tame to tempestuous.
I miss the travel, my independence.

But I love you,
and my knees are sore in this cold,
and there is bread rising in the kitchen,
so instead I spin the moonlight
into the thick whisper you love most,
teasing words and laughing syllables,
and, eventually. . . silence.