push

How the air shivers when we intend to part our lips, speaking aloud what once was only blood and pulse. Giving body to a notion the same way we shed breath. I lean in, as if to whisper. I move my body as though we were close. The wind spills in to sweep each tree of every shadow. I do not hesitate until I say your name. These wishes, these fleeting incantations. The way I whisper each and every kiss to your radiant skin. The wind rises and the words just melt away.

It is memory that tips the scales, eyes that glitter with enchantment and intent. The slow circles as each notion traipses and bundles down the blind stairs. This insulation between each spark and breath, the learned burnings glisten like fever in the insistent sweating of this self. The waves passing through you as you seethe and gel. This want this name the push of demanding hands. Always you are here, warm and as near as breath. Always these little whispers to come shimmying down the bones.

The rain falls in spatters and torrents, it falls in dashes and in dots. The sky leans in close until everything spills and spills. All the dust goes dancing, this vast unruly baptism lashing limb and reviving root, the old songs shaking loose from these mistaken lungs. I cough and cough, climate a kind of faith in weather, the body ever the river and the rollicking sea. It is so much nearer than the pain, so much closer than any jag of prayer. With a word the world sighs that name. The doused cinders sing and sing. How heavy the flavor lingers when it is down to the ashes. How long this taste is savored when even the spirit meets its flame.