You Stepping Lightly (Early Draft)

This is the once ripe petal of your trumpet
reverie: the caterwaul of an itching scalp.
In mourning, I place the ebb of gloaming
blossom between synapse and ear: now
it browns and clenches small fists.

Once, there was a jar of oil
for your crystallized brow. Tonight
you become the preservation
of December. Open mouth

and spill snow. The winter solstice shatters
down your chin, collects in drink.
The chill glitters, pulses with the wild skin
of your face when it meets my harvesting hands:
electric palm to ice finger.

Even now, you remember how ice
embraced her body: the lengthening
of night, early dusk. The embalmment
of your form in the reflection, a how-to
wrap marbled face and limb. I wonder
silently, if you crossed her arms and pressed
her lips together. Regurgitate salvation:
here is the gift in silk ribbon and sunset
bruise of bone. Preserve the body.
Yours.

I vomit the things you won’t say.