His breath shimmered like the small quick fish
he grabbed and let go among the tall grasses
of the childhood pond when he saw her, lustrous,
bright, haloed despite the dark of the quarry.
He ran without care, but she cared not to be caught.
Her getaway left him wanting
to seal up the too wild river of his heart.

She a translator, he a spy,
she revealing a page of text and meaning,
he unlocking the perfect code, one half
needing the other without knowing
a single foreign phrase, selves fitting together in
a fragile nested shell, making one world for two.

In her god wrought cave, she wept. She saw
only a stilted heron, perfect, patient, dagger sharp bill
alert to pierce a tremor in still water. Fearful, her breath
barely held with sight of his leaf twined leg
as she broke the surface to touch his beauty. She howled,
a breeze feathered his cheek.