I
Your sick face flashes through the window

i think of you when i feel this
	scrape of bark
running like ink
	over my skin
i think of you
	over my shoulder
dying in the white hospital
	lights over your head break
shards lead to a tree in the courtyard
	into which i lean
gazing up into the green hand
	tussling in the wind

			II
In my sorrow after your death, I am tugged along by intense dreams

at night alone i dream i see
	over my head
pearly agates on the shore
	washed with moonlight bubbles that touch rooting ferns
soiled over your buried mouth pursing with granules of dirt
	that rub my lips with a dark sweat running bloodlike
into the creases of my shelled knuckles
	that quiver
and quiver and move like sand beneath the sidewinder’s belly
	like his serpent mouth my mouth is hidden like his split tongue
behind my cupped hands
	floating between your breasts
where the ring once hung like a stone riffed
	with torn heart tissue twisted
in a beaded smile
	knowing death
is the road to awe

© 2008 by Christopher Lee Miles. All rights reserved.