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.