Experimenting with Staying Up Later, for Charles Adrian

There is a cryphon named Hershorn. They live on the edges of buildings. All the ledges and corners and stoops and bits of the balcony where the guardrail does not touch the cement. They swoop; down, up, across the river, atomized. The instant they leap, they move in waves, in shifts in time and feeling. They mingle with the songs that make us cry, over the radio. They steal into our headsets and ask us if we will accept a call from an unknown number. They whisper to us between naps on a train and they offer you rich dessert instead of breakfast. Hershorn makes words. Big words. Not long, not spellable. But new words. To reverberate in our wrists and the space under our diaphragm. To use while getting out of the shower without slipping. They dance the syllables between moons and asteroids and dust motes. Space between their talons and imperceptible eons between each nuzzle they give you, in search of a stroke or a kiss.