in limestone, granite, sedimentary blocks
we built the channel, ran the course.
the green of the water, hemmed in
and dutifully moving us place to place:
the braying of the labor, side by side,
broad backs, grey spines, buzzing flies.
where i refuse, you insist, and years from now
we may have built a world for that.

here we are in the place where stones are built
particle by particle, long monuments to time.
here we have come to find equilibrium, even footing,
and a sure sense of each other: as climbers
on the great limestone crags we become nimble, sour, quick.
i take you in my mouth so that you will remember me.
you push into the heat of me and i think i cannot speak.

here in the old growth, the trees are brown giants
that speak with the wind throughout the night.
they spread up and out to build a canopy, a space
that would be otherwise empty now holding life.
beneath their many-fingered arms i reach too
toward the sky, your face, and possibility.

nights later, when i am restless, you invite me
back into your arms, still smelling of resin and lime.
i crawl into your heartbeat, wet and waiting.
with your hands on me, what i can be
is so much greater than what i was before.

among all the quiet violences you visit on me
the ones i do not recognize are most dangerous.
your dissatisfaction begins to lurk in my own skin:
i press myself smaller, starch my own edges,
bleed quickly at night, bleach in the morning.
i have never been so whole as i am with you:

a real woman, trademarked and branded, with
accessories and behaviors to match. i am
every trait you have wanted, interchangeably.
you put me on and off like a kitchen bulb.
because i am not authentic, i am valued. i am owned.

the cup of heat that rests in my palm because
my hand is not quite flush against your skin--
I think you can hear me swallow past
the lump in my throat, a pebble compared
to the monolith of my fear that you will leave me--
you will leave me-- because I cannot
tell the truth or be a truth in my own body--
you will leave me-- to do the dishes
and talk to your mom and brush your hair
and maybe, if I am very very lucky,
you will come back to me again, and shore me up
against these rocky cliffs-- with your eyes
and your words and your faith

I am not worthy of the love you give to me
but this does not prevent me
from asking for more

Introduced to an environment in which
I cannot lie any more-- a chameleon without
color, a snake without camouflage--
I hope only to adapt, to not disappoint.
You will find me later, curled up against
the breakwater and boulders, seeking
the only comfort I am always sure of:
the buffeting of wind and water, the erosive fury
of natural forces, so much larger than
you or me or the disease and discomfiture
that lurks in my marrow in this place of love.

for what your gestures are:
but also for the assumptions you make
when interpreting me:
I suppose you cannot be blamed
if I refuse to speak.
for all the ways you heal me:
and for the furrows which your expectations
dig from my skin.
I am fallow, uprooted, overturned
but still, untilled, dormant.
I am a paid down cavern of possibility,
a darkness you cannot conquer.

The memories begin to blur.
Who said which thing, which terrible
epithet or storming out belongs
to which emotional tempest?
Named, my holes are immense:
it is clear I can neither see nor hear.
You are a hush against the trees,
the gap before the terror.
Like the Lacanian sublime I feel
mesmerized by the ends that you are:
I welcome you, beautiful heart,
into the swirling columns of my mouth,
the gathering greenness of my flood.

for all the ways in which I am already compromising
and have no guide, no instincts
to know how much is too much.
you could reach across all my borders,
stretch out stem to stern across me and I
would welcome you, Armageddon or no.
when was I supposed to learn these lessons?
how does it seem that all the others know?
I break cadence to ask questions,
and in those moments of bravery I am
quite stupid, full of harm and fear.
I startle you with my ready abandonment.
I startle you with my covering, groveling mouth
and low posture when I do, inevitably, crawl back.

I sneak among the stalks, pale and flighty
for all the ways you will be my end.
If you see me, I am cornered;
if you say my name, I am dead.
The recognition is the end of me, I know.
Your gaze sweeps these well-tilled rows
like an expert estimation of what is verdant,
what is struggling, what is dead.
In your gaze is my own estimable worth:
what can I produce? what fruit
can still be culled from my tired bones?
If you see me, I am cornered;
if you appraise me, I am dead.