Stoning

I walked around your figure, holding in
my hand the rock to reprimand you with,
and in that ancient stone, that monolith,
found a Rosetta for our separate pain:
it broke your jaw-- you never spoke again.
The blood you bled for me had stopped your breath
and filled your mouth completely, so in both
of us the tongues remained as mute as stone.

I come back to your image in my head
among the ruins of my mind, in which
I find you with a scientist’s surprise;
your face has turned to fossil: I can’t rid
the trace of you from this past, nor detach
your figure from the rock in which it lies.

Caesura

Your body didn’t stagger in that determined
lunge towards water but fell seamlessly
it seems fond of the waves that moved it
farther and farther away from me

There your face sank consolatory
as an anchor assuring stability
for the tired breathless swimmer
as if drowning was the only condition

Twin lover and sibling with whom I drown
in this precise water each night I come back
to this shore to convince myself you are
here repeating my own unmovable grief
I make revisions of our own tragedy
including caesuras for you to breathe