Alternating hurry and hush, the climb and brake of my fear and adoration. In turns, I am all of me a catastrophic lover. You will have to lead me, over and over and over, to the mountaintop where I have already planted a pomegranate tree.

Push me pull you drown me dust you, the gravity between us growing lighter by the second. Water or sand or the way I cannot bring myself to say your name at climax. A journey at night, alone, through the desert, where quick-tailed coyotes shy and are never seen. The oasis of your mouth, and the cut heat of your eyes when they turn from mine.

After all, what shift in the quicksand could have brought me to your path? I am no bard, I am not looking for audience or capitulation. Pride and all the mouthy ways I shy away from truth: between my breasts a battleground, the lantern that could not be put out. And at the close, only gratitude: the broken verses I breathe for you at the altar of time and chance.