everything else was water

There you are, in your red shirt,
under the fire-berry sun of summers gone.
The pixeled silence of photography mocks
the moments we spent over water chestnuts,

the laughter of gold and silver groves, where
the trees split like roasted salmon, where I burned
in your palm like star-crossed campfires.

And you were with me when the foliage split,
when the saltwater wind layered on my teeth.

I could feel you taste it with me.

In your absence, there was a man who dressed himself
in leather from the cold backs of nocturnal amphibians.
We left on his ship of watermelon rinds,
and he called me his darling, his pearl.

One night on the sea, I woke to feel the embers of your fingers
blistering on my hand, and I used them to burn
out the eyes of the watermelon sailor before I swam away.

And you were with me when I melted through
the iceberg, when I ran barefoot across the sand.

I could feel you waiting for me.

Your mother was tending the water chestnuts
in our gold and silver grove, and she cried as I told her
of the watermelon sailor, and my eyes blazed
as she told me of your windy sojourn

across the ocean. She gave me the picture of you
in your red shirt under the fire-berry sun,
and I exploded out of our grove and flew

beyond the volcanoes that burn under the sea, onto
our crossed stars that will keep me until you return.

I can feel you. I can still feel you.