“Beloved” & “While my mother stayed on the cruise ship”

Beloved

When your beloved uses all their strength,
Nails stuttering across wooden planks,
Frantically clicking at the floor to fall at your feet,
Panic is an option and so is unsurrendered love.
I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.

Hard is the edge of a shadow attached to a blade that drips
Time, precious are the suns that move seconds
Across your face, water clinging to your muzzle in my hands,
Panting collars and leashes and never-ending love
In a bed that smells like a bouquet,

Because you let me wash your fur,
And kill you with compassion at the moment of no choice
When wildness returns with metal trays and scissors:
Only you, only you,
In the air I can hear you still breathing.

---

While my mother stayed on the cruise ship

the helicopter landed
with its black metal legs, a body
against a blanket of blue and white,
a parasite exhaling exhaust
onto graupel fields of ice.

We were equipped with a pick ax
boots with spikes
it was quiet; trees laid sleeping
in moraines mangled by slipping ice
striated like styrofoam.

We held out little plastic bottles
underneath a crack, water running
thousands of miles to meet
us standing there in silence.
It was so pure, it was almost like tasting air.