My dovetailed fingers
form around the water—
the water that absolves me,
the water that surrounds me.
We lie in a tangle of milkweed
and wait for monarchs—
till' the grass parts beneath us,
we'll be waiting for butterflies all the while.
How keenly we hid in the milkweed;
until we could no longer find each other.
Rather than circumvent the space between us,
we waited.
For the monarchs, of course.
Easterly and westerly winds converge—
at the navel of my pain.
The black stone in the pit of my stomach
pulls me down into the earth.
I let my hand graze the water's surface. the water that is formless—
the absolving water,
and I am
briefly weightless.
