When There Is Nothing Left
Still, there will be
slow, opulent exhales
like whispers.
There will be loaves of fresh bread,
with perfect crusts like chrysalises
and the satiety of breaking them open and touching the spongy insides with naked fingers.
There will be houses with staircases that lead to corridors
peppered with rooms guarded by doors waiting to be unlocked,
And on the other sides of those doors, there will be papered walls and dusty relics of beloved things, of precious things.
There will be empty cigar boxes inside which to store skeleton keys and bird skulls and pieces of paper that harbor secrets.
There will be handwriting, alphabets curling around each other like bodies with arched backs and stretching limbs.
There will be the smell of lavender riding breezes through open windows, and the stickiness of pomegranate juice dripping down your chin, and
the howls of wild coyotes in the distance
and soft cats curled against your cold feet.
And there will be newly ripe raspberries staining your tongue,
and your tongue pressed against the skin of your lovers
and the calluses of your palms climbing the spines of bodies you have loved and will love,
and warm blankets.
There will be eruptions of dancing, fits befitting holy fools, the intoxication of orgasms and floods and weeping and surprise and falling and
robust, dark chocolate.
There will be violin strings.
There will be poems.
There will be long, resounding silences in the dead of night, broken gently by the creaking of your joints, the rise and fall of your chest, your infallible pulse.
There will be the moon, pulling on tides and madmen, crawling across the sky, waiting for you to open your mouth and wail.
There will be bodies of water and deserts and mountains and dreams.
There will still be your heart, soft, marked like a map, with spilled ink and broken teeth, swelling and shivering, pushing back against entire worlds leaning on it, holding labyrinths and civilizations and wastelands and shipwrecks and gardens
and hope.
There will still be your heart.
