I met a man who rose like water, split as the bloom of a flower.

He walked in awesome gait, heavy fire foaming from his mouth;
with tired neck he would cross the river each morning and say
how Death was a woman with my eyes.

In summertime I would tell him
that in our bed a Titan laid between us.

Rain implores, each viscous night, that I forget
his handprints seared into my skin, the weight
of his barrel chest, his punctured heave like a car horn.

I trust the silence of this house.
In broken effigies that loom their misshapen bodies
the night is kind in her inhospitableness.

Late, the yellow roses wilt, their petals combing the air for memories.

When in the darkness, and my words distilled
by the concave hollow that lays upon my cupped shoulders,

I say in a breath what I could never utter,

one thousand slipping sighs.