of preservation comes so late
it might be better to save
the breath it takes to offer
a patronizing sentiment of afterthought
to the life long leaving & use it
for being inside the moment
now yours from which another life
long practiced in those elsewheres
no longer needs
yes, and. . . ?
how broken a body
must be from her remembered warmth
to find herself leaning in like this
what mouth so long
silenced learns to round the sound of her
lover’s name well enough to footprint the air
between them into shadow
lines suggestive of the mystery of why
it is so fraught to be a body here
longing in chorus
along ancient lines of undulating tones
over water, cavern, tundra, moor
into the next breath coming
to touch her with finally something
so long past the melt of seeming sure
into the hot mystery of skins
so sudden
& here
& hear
me now
i call you lover
come hurry
it is time now set me
as a seal upon
it all take it all
i give it up
to you know
say me back
or leave me
here
where matter
is what does not
beyond this place
where i
see you
seeing into here asking
where i
to respond
must grow limbs of song
to run
after the endings that come
and come upon us even now & i––
in this one day ever
hope to answer
my unutterable word
in the formless, fertile mess
in becoming
i break apart
into space
for holding
emergent life
not yet
seen & here
i go dark
underground
to breathe
invisible communion
among all breaking
open
& movement
all web
all weft, warp
all woven
in why whistling
underwind
& winding back as if to
tie you to its
waving
& away from
what you thought
known of who you
were
in possibility
what might a whole
faith
sound?
with her heartmind
with her souled body
in denial of dictates
by keepers of orders
to wrench by flawed reason
mind from herself
being from womb
also her
how would her chorus
shiver grace back
to her flesh
light back to word
mystery returned
to these folds
within her
what beyond there
And then in the hush, a shift
stops the pen, suddenly exhausted
by the weight of what preceded it.
There are not enough words
to make a wall between now
and what is lost. No sense
running for another stone
to prop up against the last
already threatening to give.
The only steps that matter now
are into a nonspace with no
road to lead you anywhere
and yet the only here
there is when you leave
that other one.
in close proximity, unhearing
i imagine sometimes
you as your almost-believable avatar who
one day opens an imagined door
or ears to hear, to let them, to all you do
not––
inside or out in these eons between us
and your almost-never, the moment
of this blaring nevermind, i train her
back to soundproof cellars
of some other time
promising to visit.
& whose word
strange unseen dark of this body
heartbeating unto her first word
and it was good
and it was listen
all this before the hour of tower lights
and high walls blaring admonitions
ripe for falling from and that followed
and with it the word forbidden and us
tumbling after
& now is a good time to remember
how in the beginning
before the word
was her hearing
like come
and elasticity
inside taffy pull
of memory’s hand
over residue of time
––how it opens
to be another
being––
reshaped, remolded
before cooling
again
inbeing
breath of air
brush of skin
tap of wet
cup of water
hand to mouth
face to cat
ear to whale
swerve to dance
in flight
in dream
in song
in throat
of blood
gone
loosed
