Jai Bashir- “Your Love, the Animal”

Oh, we know the end of it,
stained by the shadow

of menstrual blood, after brief encounters
with a dreamt God. Coyotes called me

awake. Looking out the empty bedroom
the moon floats on a discarded bride’s dress,

watered- down pearl. Wanting and waiting,
like the first aleph drawn into the mud. Called down

the levee, hummingbirds make my body
their citadel, whirling the orbiting rituals

in Hindu marriage. Inside of me, your warm life
once gave truthful resonance to all things. New felled,

you’ve taken my limbs. The evidence arranged
in the silver of Delilah’s scissors. A first gray hair

plucked after lugging in muddied red. Bow your head,
in the geometry of an animal feeding. I’ll cut it out

with such certainty as holding my blade on the brain
whetstone, the bow touching the body of strings.

Listen: this is the heartsong: such aching

in every needle as if each pine is here. How far to draw
swords to feign madness from the violence of a lover

who just doesn’t love. Hawks take back the air,
growing soft black shoes, in dens dewy-eyed kits, fill

their throats with mother’s milk. Feeding with my hands,
and then I’ll feed you my whole hand, too.