Then, when ready,
say hello
the wait has been fervent

his hold curls into my upper arms
his fingertips trap my body against my heart

this man with mechanical hands starts
a slow mission for my stuttering art

he steps into my enigma and sees himself
he knows nothing of how i study
his pinecones, pink shirts, deck hands, his
pinky finger that pulls each star from my mouth

i am afraid to go out of my house
i have been singing songs that sound like him
i have been passing them to the band like secrets
i have been adoring the negative space around his shoes

i have loved him without knowing him

his personal military reporter, i embed myself,
so, when he falls back, his mind can always be
safe and sound in both of our laps

he fills himself with right angles, approval, levity…
some of his thoughts are knives against my neck,
try to dictate the beat of my own breath

he takes me to the bottom of the sea,
swarms the ocean with his rolling chest,
pries our oldest ages off like an oyster shell,
pulls submerged pearls from his throat
and holds them in his mouth like teeth

i touch and dream

i sit in his bends like a knee joint
along a ledge, i still the air so he can sleep…

swells of rivers fall silent, a sun
rises above his head while he is under
the power of his own strategies,
starfish swoop swiftly through
the blue-black hair of his youth

the space we hold gives us strength
we did what we had to do

we wagered our existence in two