0b16a4ec1deb472ce57d7652d12a39a0If I do not
speak of you
part company with the calcium in my bones
ligaments and tendons
dearticulate our fusion
unpick the stitch
reduce to oil once more
our burnishing
if I untie, dismantle, cleave
unweave
scrub away
the dust of my soul
wherein you reside
filling it whole
I am left my love
with a shadow ill substantial
unknown and unfamiliar
for it was your
hand I felt against me
your face I beheld
too long I have gazed only
at the circumstance of your make
thinking myself a different race
escaping into your darkness
when I burned within my own
thin shell
you wrapped yourself a hundred times
around my need for union
where you began and I end
nothing can anymore divide
even the wind even the sea
even time and hunger and fire
even birds of prey who believe
the desolation of my shape
incomplete
if I do not
speak of you
my language
my tongue
may turn and catch in rust
clacking only a hollow sound
for you fill me
like the swell and surge of saline
roosting her storm
you fill me
like burned fields herald life in autumn
you fill me
like a flame will reflect our tomorrow
it is you and if I cannot speak of you
let us leave off this pretense, belief time will heal
a rift as jarring as breath is necessary
instead, take that plunge
long and withheld beneath waves
for surely in this glassy netherworld
I see you ahead, beckoning me to rejoin
and burst on hissing sea-foam
like mythic horses left to roam undisturbed
do not ask me
do not ask me
if I do not speak of you
I am equine in my haste
ever chasing
your wild
gallop ever
forward