What if I told you I tasted
a country that begged me with its bowl
of backwaters?
I would always fit in rich earth,
dwell on a straw mat with men
and their sand-dry smiles
sculling down the river’s leg. Lust
cut me open in half like coconut
the ivory of wealth unthreading
from petals of a bruise now a drink
we ached together. I knew God lived here
in this moon-glared mountain
each descend held delicious secrets
sleeker than ceramic
and the quasar of this heart.