You map my cheeks in gelatinous dark, your torso
floating, a forgotten moon, and a violin
crosses the sheets while you kiss me your mouth
of castanets. I believed once my uncles lived
in trees, from the encyclopedia I’d carried
to my father, The Philippines, the Ilongot hunting
from a branch, my father’s chin in shadows. I try
to tell you about distance, though my body
unstitches, fruit of your shoulder lit by the patio
lamp, grass of you sticky with dew, and all
our unlit places folding, one
into another. By dead night: my face in the pillow,
your knuckles in my hair, my father whipping my
back. How to lift pain from desire, the word
safety from safe, me, and the wind
chatters down gutters, rumoring
rain. I graze your stubble, lose my edges mouthing your
name. To love what we can no longer
distinguish, we paddle the other’s darkness, whisper
the bed, cry the dying violet hour; you twist
your hands of hard birches, and we peel into
our shadows, the losing of our names.
From For Want of Water (Beacon Press, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by Sasha Pimentel. Used with permission from Beacon Press.