I said some winter's prayer, unfamiliar to my lips
but a plea for grace nonetheless.
I've seen you stretch out the sinews of your limbs
touching the hemline of the saints as they pass
and I've wanted to be next to you on that damp ground, where the
worms sing in meek continuance
as they pass.
I knew I had slighted the surface, stared straight into my panic,
Crying silently over the idea
of a distance between the heat under your ribcage
and my own, as if wound by string
there is such satisfaction in the snip
the dislodging I'll engage, for you.
Wherein afterward
I may stand in an empty place that does not resemble
your expanse
It does not convey your reaching beauty.
Perhaps instead I'll take up height and whistle gently,
of the holes in your socks and knots in your hair.
