A leaf
falls on the
water’s surface.
Birds of the body
shudder and settle.
A rose

sheds its petals.
The rose petal of your eyelid
closed beneath my lips.

For a long time
I have loved the starry
night of your body,
the torso’s constellations,
zodiacs traced along
the moles of the back,
your eyes that gave back to me
the things I love—

morning, poetry, a lamp in the mist—

your absence a house
I learned to dwell in.

What propels,
what burns,
plunging
headlong
into space, suddenly
hitting the ground, heart

split like a halved
tomato, its wrinkled core
exposed and gasping, a handful of
seeds bursting open.

This is grace:

No asking but receiving,

No knocking but an opening—