Falling Out

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When we were young in another life all snarling

our hair. We: a private language. We ate

each other’s hands. Us a danger that we

shared. I’ve hard-loved you leaning

into you with all my weight, loved like a teething

moon til teeth came cracking down, showering

my ankles. I loved/you pushed/small cage

built out of it. The word I kept was patient.

The smell of earth-dragged oak. Air holding

our long particles. We piled thing on top of thing

fingers touching under sand. Hands togethering

we built, but couldn’t salivate. I had your left

knee, maybe eyelash as my own.

Apparently I can grow wings. Sometimes

the letting go is slow and sudden, both.

After years of wrangling love’s shadow

to the ground, we realize our hands

are empty, bodies bruised but floating, Water

Water, Oh you’ve drowned me, scoured me.

Now I am clean. The love I once wore heavy

sails, now unaffixed to me. I’ve longed

so hard it snapped my body

into halves. So hard I turned

through myself like wind washing a veil.

All these years I thought that I was

loving you, but I was mourning you

and now it’s done. I lay down the work, step

to the left. I look at it there.

It takes a breath.

Then, I take a breath.