This Heft upon Your Leaving

I peel to the center for the shape

             of an answer to give you,

          for the way an answer cures

in wet resin

or can hook through the days

toward the pendulous

                        blink of your eye.

I answer as air

              answering a clapper

against edges of bronze

before belting out an anthem

of a thousand grazes,

         until I hear paper stones fall

at your softening window. 

Years ago, it seemed we were loose

strands swept from our ways,

                   two vestigial selves

to hide behind.

           Only the smell darkened when

we washed our hands in a brew

of cardamom and clove,

                    and your arms blushed

              over me in earnest. 

I tell to your thick listening

as the mouth to a sudden ear,

to your shimmering heat

        as it condenses around me.

               Now what century

fell down at your door?

What cold bowl of oats

did you repurpose into blessings?

From the kettle tongue,

take my answer as a sun-hatched shadow

               slipping to meet your palm

inside the vapor of our moment.

Take this entire autumn of waiting.

Be held by the sense

of an answer

the way an animal can sense

                     where the rain will fall.