—where is the word—
            that little Universe
you keep from me?

Is it
          under the bending
autumn leaf?

In the silting
            & fading lantern
of your voice?

You cannot aspire to
     be
there on the deck

where
           held up by barking
you cool my brow.

Or
            on the wetness of my lips
as I bid another dream to die.

—where is the word—
             that little Universe
you keep from me?

Could it be the embrace
                of how it survives the frost
in one more impossibility?

Even if
            forcing yellow & red
it withers to white?

You pushed fierce
              into my eager mouth
but what of my heart

sinking you
               further & further still
into a darkling welling of perhaps.

Speak to me
            to be done with
the budding threshing of your face:

You will want
                  the perched Word atop my breath
lonely as a gasp.