her tongue runs red like a river seeking, i am a split flower before her dry heat, i am a burnt offering before the moments we share, the dances we dance, fleeced in tendrils of silk, stained white with afternoon as the earth sunders and we fold into one another with graceful abeyance, i am your heart, the canals of blood that breathe life into your temple, show me a forest, and i’ll show you true green, i’ll show you where i buried all that came before you, as we depart into a dream that astonishes the gods of mirth, take this knife, and slit the throat of malaise, take these hands, and hold a new sun, our time runs thin, for all must come and go, and though i one day may call out to you from hills beyond, remember our garden, for a child awaits to call you home.