Come suckle
on my side where
they speared
me, let me
tell you more
stories, let
the water rinse
us clean and

(before any blood
stained any rocks or
handkerchiefs,
before we'd even reached
the skulls, seen them
parched against the horizon
like little dying suns)

my brother is lost. no. he is
submerged, laughing.
palms full of water and carp and
his fingers! his fingers
are my lips, the salt
stuck to them. i open my eyes
i open my mouth and say

Let me let you.
Let me tell you more
stories like

mimeography and how i am
thumbtacked to the walls of
post offices, the backs
of my palms flat against the cork, my face
shaped like an ape's and
devoid of any prophecy:

no one has found me since.

we lay in caves, in the wee hours
of my century, finger
to finger, both trying to find me. after the
bottle of myrrh, after the stone steps,
after my ruptured intestines.
though before Adam,
before any blood so

back to the water, our palms full of it as
we begin at the beginning
which is always always the end
of me