Summer. Silence. Take youth:

how fish out of water leap

onto trees. I try

to draw you in. You try

to draw me.

Polish

my bruises.

Ignite my cigarette.

See the stars of yesterday birthing

the stars of tonight. Knit me into being

with the paper-thin ghost skins

of two unborn children. How soft

a touch. Like time —

folding

into my wrinkled face. I see

by remembering.

That the old carnage

has grown forests. That the schools have become

schools of fish.

Whisper my name twice

for the two times I have died and

the two shards of night

my eyes still wear.

Leave spaces between the brushstrokes

for a waning woman

to breathe. Not even smoke

can blind me now.

Before my children disappear over the hill

I exhale.

Before the old gazes in

the young closes her eyes. 

Tread

the mushroom vertigo; tread

the liminal water.

Long for that first kiss

like a virgin frog. Even now

I cannot forget

the riverbank. Hasten

the passage under my feet.

Inhale:

face woven by gossamer, petals 

brighter than

all the seasons. See beauty seeping in

like a man

only to pull out. 

How vernal petals unravel

into rivers. How

closing my eyes does not stop

time. They

gave me no sun so I made it

my own. Take 

youth. Take summer.

Silence.