Awake, Loved.

What the blue rivers say are not
what they speak,
what the green bells waving in
the brown grass.
Waving leisurely in the wind.
An elephant lumbers past.
War is transparent, a piece of leaf
is caught in an updraft.
You held me, befallen,
in a piece of paper,
in a riddle.

The ground sucks up all the juice,
the sky is blue above me.
What, what say you-
how high does your voice rise,
clear over a clear day.
Clearer than what I say.
I am tired.
My ears flap like an elephant’s.
I read books,
and shun black baskets.
My back aches,
my breasts heave for you in
the dim and the dark
and the sound of the rain
wakens me. Welcomes me.
The still of the night won’t let
me down.
The beat of your heart shelters me,
love.