For the first time his hands
are wider than my hands.
The pads of his fingers tell stories across my wrists,
deeper lines than I've ever seen trap glittering minerals.
And despite his outward roughness,
he is softer still than the bunched fists that held me fast,
kept me for years in a harder bed than his.
He tends a wider history,
kneels among the rows and breathes life into the tired soil.
In the absence of rain, he draws from a deeper narrative:
I borrow the ladle and drink.
If I could, I'd bring him the world while he sleeps,
the fondest victim of his midnight whisper --
dreams we know,
years spent harvesting the fruit of the seed we sowed
when I was a child, when he was just a boy...
I wend myself around the stock and wait to put down roots.
We will grow beneath the same sun.
The garden gate is shut.