from “Crown for What Has Kept Me”

We have only known each other’s skin for the last moon,
but I look for you in all of my mornings.
We are so torn by the scars of past lovers,
names we toss and burn and scrape
through ashes to salvage. I make no promises
other than I am as good as my word.
I make no promise tomorrow will be a field
with no fire to raze, that the light will steadily bend
in the ways that make snowflakes dance. I can only promise
what grows in the mouth: chrysanthemums, tender
cussing and curses, your name budding impossibly in the space
behind my teeth. Beloved, I praise your every waking.
Your mouth a sunless prayer I breathe into,
like the night forever reaching out for a kiss.