your want. A gulley appears
in the hard bare field between
those fenced brows & opens
into shallow beds tilled from temple
to temple as if the glut of a flood
had been swallowed to reveal
the land’s contour underneath.
Habit—or hurt—has made
your surface smooth (its true
smallholding kept submerged)
& I drink of this drought
like I’m told a new calf gasps
for air when its muzzle is cleaned
of that which had only just
kept it subsisting. Is it still
synesthesia if I have no choice
but to use my eyes as ears? You
laugh then, your teeth fitted
around the steady static grumble
of the sea below us, your eyes
a yes or no question I’ve waited
seasons to seed. Operator, are you
there? My hands have never been
so pleased to be my mouth, so
my mouth can be other things.
The moon is a sickle that swings
despite the plow’s augured return
& in my fingers is your name
I plant again & again in the ground.