"Chrestomathies of Omecihuatl, Giver of Life."
When lovers gaze through water and know the shape of duration,
why does mine perfection press between my shoulder blades
as a stare?
The pen, a trading eye casts the hours, shadow, form,
and identity.
Shattered desire to presence dooms
with winds shaping broken figures out of sand.
Spring-budged chill and early-April frost.
When I press my finger into the world beneath the grass,
why am I other in winter's ash?
Beneath the clavicles narrow, we loam and rake tumors
to language, self of shadow.
In love, we live laced in other voice, hem and seam.
You told me to pour water until the aster overflows.
Soil spilled onto the floor.
I cannot keep.
I cannot will this lovely grid.
Your compass hollow where my belly splinters.
Meager, incarcerate dawns will us, as hand to hammer,
our gesture, a forge whose tongues
translate scarlet joys out of blood, out of poppy,
of each other.
We speak bodies whole."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]