love is embroidered wherever you are

every time i sway swollen with words 

i find myself in our childhood

reeling

reeling 

reeling

like when the water flocked toward our wiry knees

in the ocean so many summers ago, 

almost biblical in time,

full our stomachs were with grapes

unused for my mother’s wine

always shielding my face 

from the ocean’s reeling anger

the sea that salted the earth of our body,

cold acupuncture on my tomato sunburn

but you ate the waves i cowered from

with your unbraced smile

and pale arms flailing in ritual with the wind

what i feared you embraced, always, colored purple,

spoiled and full,

ribs tinging with serendipitous pain

on your bedroom floor, too,

walls a rapturous neon green

among cracker crumbs and

sour gummy whales beached on 

the rug by your full-mooned yoga ball,

math equations unsolved,

english essays unwritten,

and when i dreamt through time at night

i dreamt in abstracts 

saturn would house us,

cats would live forever,

parents would love each other,

death would die alone,

love would embalm us.