Think of the pear
and its grainy room the color of parchment.

How the weight in your hand
becomes the first song from the grave.
Brother bone, I have knelt

in furious beauty,
drunk root to crown,

loved you in your sleep, and sleeping,
felt your spine
in the shadow of my breasts,

and waking in the first wine
of morning, known the nautilus,

marriage of pearl and roaring.
I know the scent of pepper
and gunmetal,

dark braille my fingers comb.

There is no loneliness
like finned mouths opening on the eve

of something without name.