Found me like an ember

It was the end of July when you fruited

inside my fastened, sagittal mind.

You had just divorced your mother – I mean,

your wife – I saw you look at me

eyes as plum blossoms still long

for this world, I looked for a blush

behind the sepals. You had come in from a summer rain,

the kind that swallows, swaying, say it –

eight years of rain later, and a son. I plunged

these burned hands into you since

drinking the end of July dry found me like an ember,

scarcely able to softly touch without reducing everything

to ash. Though I’m much better now, the plum tree suffered

in the heat.

I thank your mother for the hollow she left in you, so,

when you knew not how to ever be full,

you made a vow between two continents, and I thank those

eight rainy years, grafted to a tailspin, for

giving you a son. I thank your boy for growing from that graft

it took a hollow to fill, which took all those

years of rain to bloom your two tender, brave eyes I shyly mistook for not-yet July fruit.

photograph by Silvia Grav.