we got the tender, the touch, the hungry lick, barefoot

tumble through the sundown dim—wet grasses, basil sweat

and honey rush the skin, the tongue—

the dirt worked through

by our wildbone hands. Tell it we know how to follow

the yarrow, the roots, fig tree, pear tree to where they lay down

deep marrow in this flesh—our flesh. Tell it to send its small things past us,

past us like smoke empties from a jar, tell the tiny lightning bodies to

glint mica, spread borealis.

Slow it down now, light up the thicket, slow it down

light up our garden, light up the dark between the trees,

between the hours, between the days slowed down

by the carnal, cut-deep, never leave this born of body need

rolled in green

and want of days years decades clung to rib bone, decades

clung to these bodies these bodies on this come come and stay

here on this land,

this spoken to land.