When I say your name

Your name is a plum in my mouth.

I say your name and feel your touch
on the back of my throat,
in the breath heaving up from my lungs.

Your name is swirling in my blood,
pounding its rhythm along my arms,
into the deep creases of my elbows.

I place your name behind my eyes
wrapped in that secret
where only I can find you.

I lay your name
between the bones of my spine
where you hold me up.

I write your name carefully
with water, in the spaces between my fingers,
in the spaces between my toes in sand.

I say your name and it nestles in my ear.

When I say your name,
I hold you.

This morning

when I awoke,
your image fumbled at my eye
until I swept it out
in one loud burst of light.
I turned and tunneled
under quilted bedsheets.
You, from the pillow,
watched. A starling came
to pick at my eye and
I let it. When the pupil
was gone, you chased the bird
till you caught my eye
and brought it back.

I watch you now, eating
peaches, cornflakes.
The clicking of your jaw
tolls the ascension.

Where is the ode

to the last menstruation
and the wish that, had we known

this was the last red blood gush,
the final fish/blood smell,

if we had known the warm juices
would dry, we'd have bottled them,

taken them out only with perfumes,
myrrh and spices.

If we had known, we could have
dribbled on white paper,

finger painted red, watched
our design drying like October leaves,

framed it in gold, hung it
high above the fireplace,

called it, "This is the Last."

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