That ancient love that watches from the

free space permitted by rushes

I return to. We have been raised

a certain way, a special way. To eat

of ashes and to contort

in physicality that we assert every day

with what we say and pray and will,

so that bundles, like sheaves, can live,

can bow and chase and sell.

To whom have you sold whatever it is that you did?

That selfhood of effervescent glory, grown stubborn and solid?

I don’t make that the answer, because, though mine a fraction of yours,

belief still blossoms when it isn’t too cold.

When we were young, it was a lake the night invested,

without salt that catches and cackles at what you hand to it. When we

were young and you and I were mistaken for twins,

when our hair was the same color, when we smiled the same,

when we played catch, when the bases we touched were finite and approachable,

you buried a bug and I knew you were better because of what you had done.