Because inventing heaven
from pebble and mist
was backbreaking,
heartquaking
work

and
because I
shivered with 
fever, my body lit
by rapture unfathomed,

I sought stillness in the mouth
of the ocean, gave myself
to her shallows and,
with sleepy eyes, 
said

Leave 
me here.
You laid hands to my 
dreaming curves. They became 
dunes, shifting; you filled my sky with birds.