I opened my eyes to see
the river palpating, sign
of a deeper pulse swelling
to the unfused fontanelle
river, your silver sheen
flecked blue black, wiggling
mallards who arrive
in twos, I speak
to greet the hen, who in return opens
her feathers
how did I forget to feel
her heart?
Not the globulous purple
thing we splice to know
it is there— left beating
to trace its purpose or relation
to wing: I want to know
why I forgot the feeling of her
gaze upon river, her breast, the way
she belongs in this place
as we must, somehow, belong
to too— how her timid glance could touch
mine in the air and we might, together,
stay awhile
before her orange palmate reveals the way
through mud to river, a triangle
growing in her wake, she remaining
apex, floating
as we
will to touch the very body of a tree
whose moss has engorged with rain
a cushion for my cheek
I feel your strong heart
felt this once with a mare
lids half fallen, fluttering
in some light as I
a kid yearning for something to feel
me, holding her
meaty chest slightly
risen to collapse
forehead propped on her
warm neck, bristles to skin
and the slow salt dew
forming between
us, opening
a mandala in my stomach
tail whip to fly, a sudden wind,
chain clanking over there, here
shiver of pink dusk
tiny plumes of moth
lifted from wheat, each wing blooming
through thorax dentritic, velveteen,
to feel this world
as its seams—
made with a curve
made to return
to the body, so quietly like everything
you ever remembered but more
like remembering.