If we slept with our heads
touching, we’d dream of
your body, frozen
in a murky green river,
your eyelids thin, almost
glowing. I know how to follow
your footsteps: mushrooms
spring up in your wake.
Faceless, silent life.
See, love is only enthralling
when it’s buried, but
I’m tired of the shovel
and the sleeplessness.
You keep handing me forever
and I keep handing it back,
saying, Hold on a minute.
You are giving me violets
and I am giving you black earth.
It’s a ritual now. Put your
two hands together and pray.
Jaye Nasir lives in Portland, OR where she spends her time writing fiction, nonfiction and poetry that blurs, or outright ignores, the line between the real and the unreal. Her work has appeared in Kitchen Table Quarterly, Echoverse Anthology, and Lammergeier Magazine, and is forthcoming in Santa Clara Review, Buckmxn Journal and elsewhere.