I stood on the long beach
and waited. My hands knew
when she arrived. I tell you
I do not need the light-
blind, I could sing how hands
are content to follow forever
such loops into hollows
where all lines curl
to the force of a circle.
When she pulled me down
I saw only sand,
but she bore me while waves
dragged out the shape of invisible
hips and shoulders. Her tongue
rooted to mine, we grafted in air.
But hard bones broke
through the scud and foam of her flesh
into my sight, and her tongue was ash.
I lay on the cutting staves
of her ribs, her thighbones
locked on my flanks. I cried out
against the clench of collapsing jaws,
sternum lifting its knife at my heart.
The foam was obscene
with clots of sinew and hair.
I stood, drenched by the fall
through knuckled spine. All that remained
was the lifted wing
of a mummy gull, feathered rot
torn by the wind.
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