After she says let me fill your collarbone with water, you think bodies are islands.

You wait for the shores to drown.
––
You are swimming and swimming –

in October, in the ocean, in a dream, in a poem, in a song. Fast friends,

days and nights agree not to keep you a secret.
––
Your father says I’ll be here tomorrow, and his shadow stays exactly where you marked it.
––
A name sits on your tongue and thrills you.

You call, somebody turns. The second becomes the stillest hour.
––
You live in a country where the government ran out of bullets. Each time fear arrests a heart,

somebody flies a kite. Children, bakers, fools, the village follow suit. As if to proclaim that

sometimes we are protected from the vastness of the sky.
––
No mouth is left to dry.
––
Days and everything they hold flee you. 
Trace of birds, blur of trees, ripple deforming

your face in the puddle.

A sentence with the word hilarious in it.	
The lack of need to record it.
––
You kneel. You trace beads of rosary, and a song

stands inside your throat. 
Even the wind and the space it fills are sacred.
––
Your friends tilt their heads back.

The air is laughter.