After Ann Filemyr
You come to
the back of me
pounding cold velvet, could even pass
through the black of my eyes
but I am bone.
I have my defenses.
Hemorrhaging beyond neck
flooding ears
all the split and cobbled earth within you
has relented to the bottom, now coated
in the silky green coagulation of still things—
as moss spores to rock
or an opal glaze collects
over the dreaming eye, mattering
so secretly
suddenly, as fledgling tufts erect
like a crystal garden
through marrow, wing bone, flesh—
hard things, which no such hardness
could touch without breaking
though calloused and gripping
my soles (bless them) keep burrowing to catch
hold of a stone
curling arch to grasp
a broad-enough edge but jolted
forward from behind you
take me perpetually through
my such soft human terror
my infant body in situ
unbreathed, bracing water
to break for breath, crowning
through every wall I could never
(bless them) hold
You slip me free of pleading
through the blue black
gushing, no thing
to hold me against you
but in you
everything
slipping then
swimming
I came to touch your mouth
and live