—Pompeii 79 AD
The ash-spined sun descends its bronze
column, garden’s cloud a ghost of breath.
If the ground did not move us, would we still fall
into rhythm? Could I call it weather related—
my teeth aching at the root? When you left,
I bedded down the letters, traced your vowels
with wine, tongued gulf pearls you gifted
my wrist. At noon: the pumice, Vesuvius
spits red plurality, the windows sealed
with cloth. Lava another word for torrent,
door another name for warning.
Beloved, how I softened like blood
to a bruise. How I loved you
the way magma turns the soil.