One morning you will wake,
find the mirror and discover
that your body is a gourd.

It's as I told you yesterday--

We live in the hollow of life,
within the skin,
in a husk of a home.

You dream of nests, caves,
clefts in the cliff, us kissing
on the floor of a kiva.

So tonight, when you lie beside me,
hidden in the dim, you will drift,

find us in the fold, pressed
against the breast of the valley, the lips
of the stream.

So you must trust me tomorrow
when I tell you--

I love you, but the flood will come.

The moon will mean more.
You'll see.

Tides are everything.

And my voice will sound round
when I say it:

This is the dark place
where you hid as a girl

Curled,

in the belly of the sink.

                                                     -km