My lungs are only full
with your breath in them.
I have choked on many impostors.
I breathe you in and out.
Everything is joy.
You are the wholehearted one
I have searched for.
I was led to the river each day
where I sifted pebbles in the current.
You were not the snowmelt
or my stiff and aching fingers.
You were a warm stone
held by a glacier.
Empires have receded
since that day.
The sun is rust-colored.
Let us inhabit the same cliffside dwelling
and watch clouds divide
and reform
around mountaintops
arching in soft contours.
Or we could unearth
our own bones
dress them up like lovers
and laugh at their crooked posture.
Like in the garden
we are clothed in honey
and vinegar, we are rutting
and sloughing
dervishes.
The ground is new
and you
are its keeper.
You are a teeming birdcage
and I long to open you
and repopulate the earth.
May your blood
be a still lake, your lungs
heavy with incense.
Dull me, entrap me
lead me
but do not
awaken me.
