Here's the ravine, a stretch of skin
spanning the breach like a footbridge.
Canvas-thin, it trembles with the blood
that runs beneath. Something less tangible
courses there too, a whitewater flume
of images: the stretching housecat;
car keys that sing and catch light;
floorboards knotted with dark, animal eyes;
the window with its shifting square of sky.
All things equal, each thing startling,
and everything unmediated by the mind's
habitual grapple with why
and so what. You frown at a faded
wallpaper pineapple, and the membrane
flutters harder. I'm careful
when I comb your sparse brown hair.
When I sing your name I borrow a lilt
I'd never use in speech. The words
don't matter; I'm saying drink me while you can,
like milk. Let me be flesh and flannel,
hands that loosen your tangled blanket.
Know me by scent before your learn my name,
before doorknobs turn into doorknobs,
before the gates knit shut.