I see the brown creek of my body
stretched before me, and swallowed
in the pale light beside the ocean,
And swallowed, in the aching of soil
between tree roots; Your leg, my leg.
All water held in the dimple of my thigh,
My hands, crushed iron; and my eyes,
fragments of wind.

I go back there, sometimes,
to the empty life of empty
beer bottles and cans, well-drained
and nestled in a sea of broken hands.

One whole sun held in my bra,
strapped to the telephone wires.
We didn’t mean anything by it, the
knotted shoelaces, flung high with clothing
well-loved and abandoned,
outlined in windows. We couldn’t mean anything,
But somehow,
they became metaphorical
like those sunburns on cloudy days.

Somehow, I go back to well-loved,
and abandoned, your leg; my leg.
I can’t help but return to
lying still, in an acre of broken hands.