It is customary that I must stretch my legs wide across the fields of night,
and make empty furrows till dawn.
You are not there.
The flesh of dawn rouses
the precipices of my fingers,
I catch thumbprints of clouds
wavering like remembrances,
Even if rain does not arrive
along the feline curve of your
pencil torso,
It has escaped mutely into my mind
begetting, instead, wild maggots—
You are not there.
Some ancient flea of a word
from your mouth buzzed
through my dreams
What a scent I pursued
But the steep crags and cataracts
Of your back, from which I hung
Like a crisp icicle
Rolled into miles of desert sand.
You were not there.
More lacquered bathrooms
conspire with my womb,
Calabashes of flesh have been
thrown to the dogs,
Your reflection, like a residual heap
of your ancestors and progeny
Meets me on my own mirror
Our fingers once knotted till dawn
like blushing reeds
The sun burst open like a fruit
on my breasts
and lit up your face like a king,
But now, the tin-trembling roofs
are murmuring black stories
Why not come home, my dear?
