dances of zola

...tell her you saw the carcasses of cherubim...
take a chair to a coast from your sisters room
stones and wood from a coast to your sisters room
say look
point to drying seaweed and bleached wood

say i didnt want to trouble you
with such a walk across sand and grass
though i wouldve appreciated your company
you knowing so much about pink flowers
and geological striations

describe a sea to her
mention grey and white of water and gulls
the sound your shoes made on sand on rock
in water
describe the sound your shoes made in air
tied together and when they hit brick

no need to explain why your shoes were tied and thrown

describe a lighthouse being where no lighthouse is
if this interests her and she begins to tie her hair
says wheres her coat
admit you lied about the lighthouse

if she doesnt want to see the lighthouse
describe the rounded walls
say how it doesnt lean
tell her you were in its light dark for fourteen hours
tell her how a wind lifted you from a beach
held you above a sea
held you in light dark

you may want to sleep with her
see her face inclined from the side
she may touch your face
her nails painted and that small smile
you know she’s always clean

she may be wearing that blue skirt you stained
on the third of august which year
while she was buying fish

tell her you understand moths
tell her you have much more to say
ask if she’d like to go with you to collect her chair from the beach
tell her youve set aside two years to talk to her
to touch all of her lips

if she turns her head from you
remember what she’s done in your name
the potatoes she baked that november
when the air was filled with the breath of a dying snail
top