Consider what it was you wanted, wounds
that neither hurt nor scar, sex that’s neither
a beginning nor an end. You want earth
in your mouth, a collective breath, a syntax
both malleable and free. You want what
you cannot have. Out the window, a thud
of sun as the breeze shakes the seedpods,
but the seedpods won’t let go their hold.
Instead, they clatter mouthful, wanton.
Cardinals perch in the persimmon, deep
red through the foliage. Have I told you
lately? That words are what make us,
that I can’t keep a noun in my mouth
when a verb will do? Foot, truth, leisure.
Pray, fall, gait. The difference is determined
beneath what breaks in us when we part.