Were these not
             the hands we used
                          to sever open
summer melons?
             Yesterday was
only decades ago. You
                  eat into & through
      yourself. Like prayer
that won’t.
             That can’t. Like
pretending your ribs
             won’t scar
      you the longer you
             breathe. In the open
air is another
                  shape of
another moon
             you’ve left
      behind to the day-
light entering
             your body
      like hunger. We had
                  the hands
of gods—for only
                          a summer.
Which is
      to say: sugar touching
                  a tongue
             touching another
melts against
      the sound of
cicyúuk’is because
                  first the body
             demands us
to be bruised
      with need—with our
                  lives asking
to be more than
      cages—but cages
we unlock & leave
             behind like
                          our rough-
skinned fathers’
             quieted gates
      of bone.