11/11

I breathe and kneel

at the foot of myself

Withering drips of autumn

alight the air and fall

as leaves on my mother's swollen front

I am there within the red

beating blood and I am here

on the gravel worn by tires

On my back wings bleeding from that fall

so steep from the sky of my before

I am spread naked from birth

the stones bearing my fragile weight

I am the wind that teases winter

from the bark

It is 11/11 and the number signals

my joining

Skin to grow around the first feather

and to succumb to the autumn grass

To learn to perish like the bud withering

shivering on that metal ground

For what is more divine than learning in that fall to die?

We are both sipping coffee in the hub

of our words

Falling in love with the dead oak

of the table and in one another's eyes

Moles of winter have snared my wings

but yes, in this cup and in your smile

I have relearned how to fly

I am here splayed on the ground

I am there in my mother on 11/11

And I am everywhere when I

alight the autumn air

one final time

Be mine, be mine