We sat crisscross applesausely beneath a secret cave sheet fort.  
There was just room for the two of us,
To roll around and kiss
To pretend.
Shape shifting walls
warm lights and soft shadows
We kept warm with laughter and nostalgia and liquor
I could stretch and push our temperate hiding spot from us like lungs
and you would swallow me like air till I contract
We should be built into a statue, sitting here
So young lovers can relate to something concrete
And write poems about how special they are.

Mine Is Gopal
Mine is Gopal, the Mountain-Holder; there is no one else.
On his head he wears the peacock-crown: He alone is my husband.
Father, mother, brother, relative: I have none to call my own.
I've forsaken both God, and the family's honor: what should I do?
I've sat near the holy ones, and I've lost shame before the people.
I've torn my scarf into shreds; I'm all wrapped up in a blanket.
I took off my finery of pearls and coral, and strung a garland of wildwood flowers.
With my tears, I watered the creeper of love that I planted;
Now the creeper has grown spread all over, and borne the fruit of bliss.
The churner of the milk churned with great love.
When I took out the butter, no need to drink any buttermilk.
I came for the sake of love-devotion; seeing the world, I wept.
Mira is the maidservant of the Mountain-Holder:
Now with love He takes me across to the further shore.

The paint on my paintbrush
may have already dried,

but remember, I did not leave you,
even though I died.

the way he wears his words
must be the way he wears
his clothes, in few but many
not so much so that I still
can hear his heartbeat
pulse between the lines