If Only the Rain Were Your Name

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even with fire between us

we’re useless

          like the moon, the maps

you traced

          the crown of my scar straight back

I’m sure you meant no harm

driving nails into the stump

          storing wood before the rain

if I were dancing away

          what good would this poem be

what good would suffering be

                    without those light sounds

I drive nails into the stump

          pull the boiling pot from fire

and the blue sky falling

                    spills honey bruises on my inner thigh

open to interpretation

          isn’t it better this way

who we become when touched?

                    and after —

the silence

          between pines, again

an after.