87
When she was a girl, and I was a boy,
the trees had no kind, the doors had no #s,
and the wind did not carry the clatter
of bones, weathered and hollow, and once words.
Animals had our eyes, our short-life eyes,
and we knew the way to go in the sand—
and daylight was squeezed from lemons & limes—
and little lies were prey to little birds.
I lived within a prayer, when I was with her.
And now we have North, she and I have North,
and to mourn, a week with the linden trees.
And whenever she & I are children,
we're children without tongues, and without hands.