I hear each breath come

Like a whisper

But I can never quite decipher what you said.

and your fingers

are a seatbelt

that is clasped tightly around my chest.

I am staring

Like a sailor’s love

Who is waiting on the bottom of the sea.

As the moon sets

On the flattened earth

Your chin leaves an imprint on my cheek.

Pull a blanket

Around your shoulders

And love, push your breast into my back.

I have lost the words

For fighting now.

My lungs fill with the cool desert dust.

We will lay still

until fenceposts crack

And the barbed wire turns to rust.

In the shadow

Stands a Joshua Tree

With its fingers to the sky in prayer.

A goodnight kiss

From heaven’s lips

Where God leaves the stars he spilled alone.