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a little girl cupping her palms, harvesting the rain for
the baptisms they imitate as they pronounce each other
saints: free of guilt, of hunger, from the world, and
its greed for hearts still untouched by rust. I am not
asking for less rooms in my body, or bigger windows
so this little heart can language with the flight of the
red sunbirds, and perhaps, this may be what unburdens
it. Maybe even show it where to plant its prayers in
a vessel that is water—a puddle growing into a lake.
I am watching bees and their dancing, the way they
worship the petals, the way their thirst, itself, dances
on their wings. I am watching the lake confess its thirst,
the petals blackening after the curse of this knowledge
and the bees’ flight dying before their bodies do. Their
ritual, now ash, sits on the shadow in my throat—there are
many things buried under my nails from the bodies I held
only once, maybe twice. I wanted so much, so I stole everything
but the body; everything—the name, the scent of their speech,
the way their nose bends towards the earth and its silent burials
when the grass burns, and burns everything—nothing
is finding its way home. I understand how in the beginning,
the word was not enough; because it was not enough,
flesh became a sanctuary for all things that had to be
pulled out of the water that was to become the light
of the first day. There is a drought in what I remember;
I want, I want, I want—to harvest from a dry tongue,
brittle with absence, if this is how I am to rediscover
the lullaby that walks me to the water (bodies)
I gather in my sleep. There is a path back to
my mother’s lullaby and the rain that pours
in its second verse—I must find it.
