Dear N,
As I write this, the horizon is just a long spark
………between two pining gods.

I am watching the sea, that limbless ghost,
………breaching the walls of last century.
I am watching layers of city trembling inside it.

N, after the flood, the burning, the blight,
………………………we forgot how love fits together.

We are thirsty. We trace the veins on our wrists
…………like unmapped water.
When the land sickens,
…………we lick the sun from our palms
…………………and feed on old stories of want.

*

N, did you ever tell this one?

Once, a goddess crossed a bridge wrought from feather and claw
…………to touch a face that pulled her from the heavens.

…………I want to know if the sky frayed without her,
………………………………if a hole yawned from its centre,
………………………the stars burning her ankles as she fled.

…………I want to know if she cooled them in the river
………………………………as she waited for her lover.

Each night, I scour the guttering moonlight
………for the myth’s missing parts.

N, tell me, where are they buried?

*

N, when the voices reached us,
………………………………they were whole.

I have found a clutch of songs that you might have loved:

………A man dies and dances through a city of masks,
………………winding himself around every shadow.

………A woman hovers above water
………………as a pink pearl comes loose inside her.

I listen, straining to know the frequencies of touch,
………to feel a chord pulling at my naval.

N, whose voices did you catch in your throat?

*

N, I have searched and discovered that no one loves
………like the poets do.

Once, there was a woman whose name
…………summoned the spring.
……………………She took note of the swing of women’s hips
…………as they flooded the fields.
……………………She cursed fires with the letters of past lovers,
…………and compared her desire to dark cloth
……………………swelling in water.

N, maybe love is just ritual.
………Maybe that is why I understand poems best
………………when I read them near an altar,
………or when wading into the river where it begins
……………………………………….to split.

*

N, I have tried to reconstruct your world
………from its artefacts —

………a fossilised wing, a jar of plum tree bark,
………………a red clam shell on a string.

………………We are running out of things that mirror
………the stirrings in our blood.

N, when the last of your metaphors were driven to extinction,
………how did you know
………………………………where to lay your hands?

*

N, each time another shoreline surrenders,

………I imagine how two overlapping bodies
………………could form an island.

………I think of how, at the beginning of the world,
………………a mountain knelt for the sea
………………in the first doomed union.

N, even in this seething epilogue,
………I want to hold another face close
………………and sink into the same blue breath.
I want the sparking of muscle, the tidal ache,
………the glistening shadows.

I want to hitch myself to the first arrow of light
………while the sky is still tender
………………and ride it until my edges singe.

N, I want you to tunnel through the years
………and show me how to burn slowly
………………and survive it.