conversations with the hat man 2

i can't get too close to anyone.  i don't blame you for this hat man.  you shaded me, sheltered me when no one else could have.  you took me under your great dark wing.  you took the singularity, the secret, and you absorbed it into your giantness--

there is no measuring the depth of a shadow.

you are like the night sky with red burning lights throughout you.  you have a thousand hearts that glow red like hot coals.  a depth to dim the glow of day, a warm if unfortunate dream, a whisper that rises from the seed of the heart like a pale shoot.

i dreamed of warmth from the depth of the cold and you allowed me to dream.  hat man, shadow man, your hands and face of iron.  corner man, rag man, your hands and face of black iron.

i began by asking to come out from the corner
begging like a bad dog--to come out from the fringe
to be anyone's toy.  but maybe
i am just a gradual accumulation
of heat, and those who can survive the burning

will come forward.