Body Drought

February 6, 2018

To an old friend;

At night you dive into the empty river

& drag me with you. Everyone knows

a tongue without water is a tantrum.

A body without water is a wildfire.

It has been months without water

& every day I wake to the heat

knocking faithful on the windowpane.

I tried to understand. I tried. I sliced lemons

in so many ways. Fat and ripe. Dirty

and deprived. Until my tongue ran a finger

across its neck. Until the moon disappeared

in that darkest hour, when I stood there in

that merciless yard, wandering from body to body

my knuckles in a small paper bag.

The rainfall had ended and still,

I searched. I opened all the eyes. I fell to my knees,

spilled flour on the frostbitten grass. And for a moment

the sky glistened. I touched you through a gate

and could not stop you until the water,

how terrible, wandered through each and every bone.

Listen: all that thirst wore through me, wrangled out

all my teeth just to bury them back again. Listen:

your body will always be on top of mine.

Like metal roof collapsing on an unarmed child.

In this scenario, I am the blue eyes

wide & unblinking. The bed - the Jane Doe

scratched on the headstone. And you -

you were the hard swallow.

e.h.

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