each day begins lifting stone from water – 1
you have not climbed down from any of the trees
in the old photographs, still reaching for green
fruit, sour orange, tangerine, a clean hide,
ready for tanning, arboreal, we were all
snared thus, not yet fledged, not yet
knowing the merciless demands of expectation
we made the other flesh our daily bread,
boiled down seawater for salt, coffee black,
the only kindness we allowed ourselves
old conch shell table center, pink curvature
swallowing up our words,
breath kerosene soaked, arson upon tongue,
to be less than our only ambition,
what is radiant turned to a simmer,
the dream was arc of the moon or belly
of blade, cutting was all that remained,
absence as a signifier, ash of our daily bread,
we walk in shadow, we walk in shadow,
we walk in rain, shouldered over, chest
tight, we walk and sing of windblown sparks,
sand, moon, wave, we sing of all
you would deny us, it is a flowering rooted
in bone, opening only to the pale variable,
lesser mirror split from larger spall,
another blade hanging in the sky
another remnant of the original burning,
a different bouquet laid on our broken altars,
so many hands gathering, soft as moth wings
Also by Peach Delphine
- each day begins lifting stone from water – 1
- each day begins lifting stone from water – 2
- each day begins lifting stone from water – 3
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