a couple on the run, begun though it had ended,
painting red lines, black streaks, triangles on the wall,
forget the shortest distance, draw a circle with directions
in the dirt, in the sand, in the movement of a hand, tracing
imaginary cities across each other’s skin, spots of love and magic,
when a silence is a silence, and simple thoughts are carried
in the morning, in a pocket, on a walk, up against each other,
like knick-knacks on a shelf, dusted off to consider
we are all connected and can never disappear,
no matter how we’re ghosted, or cast into another plane,
my father was here, my mother was here, all the words
untethered, in the dark, against my heart, listen to this button,
ravens rustle branches, lanterns shine against the desert sky
purple in the gloaming, gentle as the quiet sigh, in time
hamaatsa, hamaatsa, hamaatsa…
