3 A.M.

 

She is a ribbon of moonlight
rippling on still water.
Is she the path, the saunterer,
or the gleam inside this inhalation?
She is a tall thin vase of spikenard
saved for my burial,
its round bottom nestled firmly
in my hipbone,
its lips unsealed, spilling
stars from my skull,
that other mouth of speechless praise.
Her wisdom is the warmth of my blood.
Her vision is a branch
of plum buds blossoming
in the darkness behind my eyes.
She rises and falls inside my chest,
ancestral breath
who keeps resounding
with a prophecy of silence.
At my throat I wear her sky,
an edgeless sapphire
of burning emptiness.
Her name means "tower of spices,"
bittersweet myrrh
saved for my wedding.
I was betrothed to her, and she to me,
before we were two.
She is the mother of this poem.

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