The path ends at a curtain
Stitched from dead leaves
Behind it
Something large adjusts its weight
You already know the smell
Current trapped within heat
Bark opened by disease
A sweetness turning in the dark
Your hand leaves the curtain
I hear your pulse
Move into your fingertips
The blue roses are still visible
Through a narrow gap behind us
I could return
Sit among the white flowers
Call that half of the garden
The whole
The thought feels warm
Too warm
Like fever wearing sunlight
Hold the image of the swans
Keep the river in your ear
Then place your palm
Against this ruined door
Feel what has been growing
On the other side
The ground still exists
When the eyes refuse its shape
Roots continue through the midnight
Moisture gathers under gates
Stay with me
Through the smell of turning earth
There is more inside your silence
Than the fear that reached us first
My lungs bargain with the corridor
One breath for another room
Then a prayer for a harmless answer
The leaves scrape together
From beyond the curtain
Comes a choir without melody
Frogs
Flies
The wet percussion of bodies
Moving through reeds
I know this music
I composed it
By leaving
The ground still exists
When the eyes refuse its shape
Roots continue through the midnight
Moisture gathers under gates
Stay with me
Through the smell of turning earth
There is more inside your silence
Than the fear that reached us first
Does it know me?
It learned your footsteps
I feel it following
It has been following
What if the sight of it
Empties me?
The orchard survived
Your absence
You can survive
Its truth
Do not run
Fear is already feeding
Through the gap
Behind the door
Put your hand
Back
On
The wood
The enclosure still exists
I feel its pressure through the gate
An entire night of buried fibers and flooded passages
Leaning toward the shape I make
Stay with me
I will keep the river near
Let the curtain leave my fingers
Let the thorns
Appear