bark

if it isn’t you
it’s prey to other
and other may not sing to us
of the balding waif of a serious love

and killing our fortunes
and smearing our kingdoms all over us
put the flat bottom of a bare foot
against us

in the middle of the street
again and again and again
in some high, hot clinging frontier
to make our stone eyes bloom
and palm-kiss through three thousand breaths
(that bright mirror of ourselves)

if it isn’t you
I will bark eternal
broken words of that hard love
and go