Beggary

In winter, it’s true, sometimes we dressed
our days like small fires fed meagerly

the low clouds giving us silence and rain
and us bowed by it into ourselves,

into gnashing the few bright wings and red
we found flying in the dark between us like words

while the river murmured on behind us
like two stone-drowned lovers breathing,

but I lived up here with you with the sun’s face
lying down into your lap, unhesitating

as it descended through the sundial firs in love
with the timbre of its own splash on your flesh

the way I loved it too, but listen: the waters
are emptying themselves from beneath our feet

and the owl is navigating the space between
the trees coldly, knowing we are leaving,

so remember the way the hummingbird
was a lamp to the summer ceiling one day

and then sitting in my astounded hand
between us, its heart the wind within fire,

as though everything was combusting at once,
that all was flame and feather and sun,

as though here, at the end of all this,
we could still somehow receive

such a tremendous wealth.