By Regie Gibson

in the year i loved your mother
i lived a glorious death
i was satellite traveling between blood and star
a planet evolving through rage and grief

in the year I loved your mother
was a time of drought and deluge
a season of rain and ruin

between us much soil and water
an illiterate ocean of language and diction

I arrived to her half broken half breaking

in the year I loved your mother
we were drum and drone
a volley of polemic and ideal

once
I glimpsed you
waving at me from her mouth
as dawn met our shoulders
she whispered your name

we became the thin line between sea and mountain
valley and sky

in the year I loved your mother
gravity abandoned me to her
she was vortex – a black hole
sewn into the belly of a continent
crushing all into singularity.

grapewaswinewas
soundwassongwas
motionwasdancewas
dovewasvulturecirclingwaslandingwas
all
that
was
:
was
herYYY

the year I loved your mother
was the year tragedy tamed tongues

we severed ours
stitched them into
one anothers mouths
we grew fluent
in speaking pain

we brought stones from our pockets
traded them
hurled them back towards
each others wounds
and those that missed
were gathered later
were used to build our walls

she was an equinox of razors when I found her
an autumn of featherless wings
caught in this gale of a man

your mother was: soft lips cutting calluses
from my knuckles

a silk fist logged hard in my mouth

where it opened into a sunflower
widening in the crag of my throat

in her skin I was cryptic blasphemy
transparent
decoded
holy