they shake hands in that opaque building

                                      here we are shaking bodies strewn in the wound
                                      to know who else is still alive
                                      in this plague, this ruin.

i have brought you wet carnations
to douse your burning heart. how much
ash was i before the war?

                                       take those sooty apples, don't forget the ash water,
                                       the tarp—let's have a little picnic, love, before we start
                                       reading ourselves the aftermaths the war left us like a

child falling, crying at its first attempt at walk.
but who said this will bring tears? the war opened
us to a sprawling river, an ambitious reservoir.

                                      reminder: please, don't bleed the ears of our unborn kids with
                                      how we woke up one day to gather limbs like a waste collector.

o, love, laugh a little, laugh & wiggle.
it's a summer away—
chirp me a song: let the night shatter on us.

                                       fractured bliss. grown grief…