Untitled

Charlie Mehrhoff

Time was from the breast of the amoeba, from placenta
dangling across sweetgrass, wild raspberry, clover.

Time was we thirsted upon what rain that pooled within
each other’s flesh. There was no lack of celestial reflections,
myriad nuclei, to orbit our loving house, to purple her earthen
floors towards honey at twilight.

Time was we saw no vine swift enough to choke the robin’s
egg, and the space between twins as the magic air to bathe in.
We knew each day to possess its own definition of luxury.
The first day: in streams of quicksilver. The second day:
alongside albino quadrupeds. The third: with camels bearing
snow. The fourth: through doors in the stratosphere, ushered
by cherubim. We made love in regions uncharted. Dizzy,
lost within our mating dance, closing our eyes to Orion,
waking up with faces full of dew. Focusing upon a mantra
not yet of this world. Watching fairies painting moonbeams,
actual moonbeams. Seeing the traveler becoming pollen.
Listening for the first bird to sing, and to be there to call
it ‘song’.

We became the stone worn into oblivion by the kisses
of pilgrims. We became the comet skipping like a runaway
child across the ink of unreachable space. We filled buckets
from the river, carrying a drink of her rhythm back.

All tables swollen. Nourishment coaxed from vines.
Granitic clusters laced with twigmeal, edges where lichen
did curl. All seeds enchanted with the unknown, tracks
of the gazelle sprouting from it.

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