I stepped in through his ears, covered in hot mud
and rolled off his tongue clean as a whistle.
I was no longer a whisper, he uttered in a painted mirror.
Scratching out two eyes that saw nothing but themselves.
He came to wonder
if there are ants in my stomach feeding an army
off the peaches I couldn’t eat for six summers.
Three winters with no springs yet, the snow up to my neck.
My eyes spilt pearls like a Japanese ghost, onto the white cold
he buried me in.
and when that melts into the lush green we’ve yet to writhe on,
I hope there are limbs left to entwine us,
I hope there are streams made to wash us.
My body unchilled is sight for him to absorb,
and record and plan a trip.
Diction may be a skill he knows
that I have learned to be versed in,
but no matter the assemblage of my alibis,
he finds me guilty, so I choose to make quiet familiar,
and comfortable and the stringy nerve endings I've grafted
into his skin and his kiss when I love him,
are threatened to be severed with scalding water,
poured from the darkest kettle called
doubt.