January 15th: Balm of Your Salt and Bog

January 15^th: Balm Of Your Salt and Bog

that

   fondled

     them

     when

     they

     were

   Fire

will gleam

and

understand

                                                Emily Dickinson

Best now to go knowing into the dark

to scent the way rather than to guess

to breathe the way with lung and hung

aloft alone and head back only after

as tide curls up quiet, nearer to blood

thick moss and tongue harrow

some of his lung of what the dark alone

trowels, what I trowel when I arrive: come let me

lift you to my mouth now I’ve reached

you, stumbled some on the way and

I say this is best: a fragrance of your night-

train freight memorizing

the ferment of our two bodies

fused fusing tell me

knowing you this way to fading

to day a blue phlox I inhale

in the brain of my nose

and hold it close in the day, shallow

through noon through gloaming

I know below, deep deep below

I’ll go into it: aroma my only coal

so at home in your breathing, let

like blood let like I’m the one

nose who isn’t blind to you

a perfume like roots a perfume

of you to tune in breath tune  

breath until dark turns darker

still darker more to again find you