We move tightly together
like swallows wheeling around the house
under whose eve they’ve nested
Your feet between mine
like bird bones
breathe tenuous yet steady
as a respirator or a clam
But my breath is pitched high
and urgent as a swallow’s call
a boiling kettle’s battle-cry
Earlier you nested
safe in the fragile cavern
of my mouth
Close as I ever get to hold
your pumping heart
your Holy of Holies
Only your skin under my fingernails
is old as temples
the red marks on your back gouged
by a cart in a Chinese poem
Originally published January 2009