Saffron and juniper;

You press something out of him that is not easily there. 

Like spice and gin, 

He contains all that you want and know. 

Tributary of water, 

He becomes something larger, harder to satiate. 

You notice him everywhere you go, 

His hands in the loom of your home. 

Spindle pricking you over and over, 

The wounds are there, but where from? 

He is a harbor,

He is warmth. 

Sleeping like a child on the foot of the bed, 

You’ve done it, now, so what then?

Cinders in the fire beside, 

Too warm to touch just yet. 

You run your hands along his back and belly;

You believe in the work of a rivet in conjunction. 

When he has come to, 

What do you do now?

Is there more to ask for, 

Once you have pulled him loose? 

You sit beside him and imagine you are five again, 

In thick bramble your brother carries you. 

He is ember, not cinder, today; 

Today he is just warm, he won’t burn you. 

Your life is a lattice of decisions, 

Harsh and metal in your hand. 

You believe him, when he speaks, 

When he cuts your skin with silver. 

You are his parchment, 

His pelt to blot with ink. 

But he is soft, with his fingers,

He holds the door open like he is the keystone of it.

He is made of marble and you swear

There is something to be formed out of stoicism.

Something to be respected and complimentary,

As it is something you don’t have. 

In orchards of deep orange, 

You hold his hands against your back. 

When you reach the summit, 

You say life is this. 

A year later, you’ll sit at the foot of the bed, 

Crying like a child. 

How could he have snapped your quill, 

Your will to live? 

In water you swim a fathom deep, 

Like you are dead and buried. 

You wake up from your dreams of tundra, 

Head pushed into your discarded ring of zircon. 

You are older, and in some ways

Your atlas has become stronger, your occipital bones grown. 

Though you are still hit by your lingering words

Of true conviction. 

How could you have believed it? 

You know fire and stone too well,

To not know what is fake, and what is real. 

You knew him too well, 

So tell yourself you won’t dream of him anymore. 

Tell yourself that you formed him, 

From the dried stigmas of a crocus flower. 

Wake up in a year and forget he was the only one

Who could turn himself into your favorite, saffron skies.

Pretend you don’t see him when the sun goes down;

When the flowers begin to bloom.