They swarm, head high
when I’m standing,
mid-air above sapling, golden,
they hover like ashes
the heat of a fire floats
and deck in and out
of sun beam and tree-shadow
burns through the pines
reflecting off the water,

and I think this is what love looks like.

A thousand floating bugs
on the edge of the water,
unconcerned, detached
from the bird and the cold,
silent everywhere
except for the hum
of their wings,
and the lap of lake-wave,

loop, spin,

move three square inches to circle each other again.

If your walls could talk
I would beg them to stay silent
like I have tried to be.
If they could hear
I would have asked for boiling pipes,
so desperate to fight the pain alone,
all I needed was water
a degree hotter than my cheeks, steam
to sooth my contracting tomb
squatted as close to the drain
and the spout, gripping ceramic walls.

Not everyone dies a bloody death.
Not everyone’s redemption
means the bloody death of their child
in a lukewarm pool.
At least you fell from me
and in to the water,
baptized in front of the soaps
while your father watched television
in the next room.

Heaven will accept you,
a peaked saint, frail and flushed flesh,
a malleable blood lump
missing a beating heart or blood pump
my fingers forced down the drain,
forced to stay silent, a missed carry,
a tiny abomination in the water, sacrificed.