In the place of cisterns
swaddled in cobra lilies
spawn of cloud seed heals
the moon of its infected swelling.
A heat dissipates to crystal, gaslit
in the aging night. You were
a slip of a boat set off in a slit
of wild waters, two down
no rudder, no oar. One love
travels in tides, in elliptic swirls
hot to cold, then back again.
The other, a faucet, a cup
a tinseled lake warming
in a metronome of sun.
