“The air has a new smell tonight.”
Cool green
vapours from the grass.
Mint leaves once grew by the water.
I remember.

“What's wrong?”
I was crying by the lodge
where he and I lay.
I remember those frozen tracks -

“Are you cold?”
Dead things were caught in the ice
and they seemed to stare
at the waltz of the stars.

“Hold my hand.”
We and the waves around us
seemed to breathe together.
They cracked the ice and clapped at the mud.
I remember.

I still know the things he told me
His secrets and memory
...
I don't want to forget.

The soil took us:
(it opened and swallowed us)
Our feet, our stomachs and chests
falling into the ground’s deep breath,
entwined hands that might have been roots,
and his mouth, gagging at the beauty of it.