Not even the dove creates love songs equally,
one shivering maple claiming autumn
wherever your instrument sounds its loss.
Across silence, the flock vanishes—
unpunctuated, the lake fills its own sleep.
On life, I recall not falling, only a miracle
catching the remainder with wet hands—
coaxing from habit a flaxen horse,
a body of ambition tall with sunlight
going the distance. Between takes, a lover
drinking your share with comfort,
bypassing the dialogue, the museum
where ancestors conspire amongst jewels.
About God, I took root as all sickness must,
letting you paint around me, cities of dust
and bare skin in midwinter.
This was long before a name took hold,
before your hands untangled what couldn’t belong.
Saving your seed for a fire, red rivering my thighs,
the vellum of a piano poorly tuned in snow.
My rain-soaked dress a failed canopy
as you sat, reeling in the sinking silver.
An artist starting over, nearer the moon,
drawing faintly the flowers we cannot own.
I say it’s that type of war — undressing a flame,
the olives spoiling early in halflight,
salmon turning, heeding the water’s steady grip.
One hand shielding a soft heart,
the other, summoning our mothers.
Sifting salt and bone — a hunger to constellate.
