poetic interlude #9: past lives

*Note: This poem can be read in a myriad of ways. For the best reading experience, it is better to read this poem on a desktop…enjoy!

We talk, me and her,

in our mother tongues

I collect her words

like cowrie shells

picking them up

to place them across my throat

to see how they feel

the sharp, serrated edges

of home

of everlasting love

You look like a dream

that I once had

it was a new sort of cacophony

like drums after death

They were in your hands

those spirits

those children in the reeds

and you left us there

with a song filling our lungs

harmonies weaved together

I can feel her

my old self

dancing between my ribs

like an everlasting fire

and it hurt

to spare me from the sensation

the pain of

knowing what could have been

as we crafted a new future

under the reddish skies of cattle horns