salt encircling dry bones belly of a house sparrow

cataracts in your eyes walls of a clinic here is the loss of memory

the loss of your mother blowing dandelions in your mouth before your first

word when her face was the only one you recognized

reached inside foxgloves your small hands wrapped in trichome

reached for the word & found sound inchoate

here is silence & wood’s foam around a doe’s lips

your ill face a boy’s face & here wind blows through bare skin

through a moment you thought maybe you could stay burrow between

comfort & cold stay in the feeling before language before

movement your glove falls off & I laugh reaching out under the

rotunda of white