On Seams, Sonnets, and Leaving

“Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant.“ Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Heironymus Bosch

This place has curled me at the edges-
left me leaf-like and paper thin on darkened
passageways of cathedral trees.
My breath escaped the wind through
pipes of hollow trunks, melodical.

Why does distance from these caving cliffs push
tides of your leaving past my bones
with such precision?

Past the driving rain, the rib-chime sky,
and the white arrowhead of Pico Blanco.
What else could tuck me so
neatly backwards into our cabin bed?

Clanking glasses, that word you loved,
your closet filled with shirts. Yesterday, I collected
chips of wood sloughed off our front porch
under your shoes, forgotten.

I’ve counted mornings.
More nights than the ones we spent together.
Watched whisky drip slowly by the fire
into the casserole dish, swilled over the memory
of your hand racing at the seam of my dress.

Pink nipples, the blue vein of exposed rock.
A kiss that begs you to unlatch the hooks
that bind my body to the world, so we may live
again among roots,
carving sonnets on the bark.