that you would let me be your harbor.

grass blades gnaw at my backside,
they don’t mean to bite, they’re just fervent in their suckling.

finger knotted
mirror palm

it always felt more complete when it was just the three of us.
you, me, and the vast, faceless

upon him, you and i finger painted all these parallels.
places we would never see,
rabbit warren cabins we’d never trouble ourselves to clean,

big, stupid piles,
bodies lie vine tangled,
but something halcyon, no more.

“look around the warren.
take what you can carry, because this is the last you’ll see of this room.”

over time, after the border closure,
after the parades of death squads,
faces of our brothers and lovers cloaked in ivory.,

we learned to condense three people into one.
we learned to say less, our words short and curt,
save for hours after, or in between,
when we could warm our skinny wrists over an open flame,
dreaming of the heavy, 72-hour lemongrass day
when it was all just painted doors and blue lights as far as we could touch,

“look around the warren.
take what you can carry,
this is the last you’ll see of this room.
we won’t be back”