::: after reggie eldridge

Imagine a cathedral of bones,
her hesitation a chorus of brass, imagine

light bending through the mosaic
of her smile, imagine mornings

kneeling in her knotted curls, rocking
religious on the pews of her thighs.

Imagine salvation, a single finger
forgiving your eyebrow for every

dishonest twitch or frivolous furrow,
sing the cobwebbed hymn of her

beauty, silly scattered marbles
in the water at the altar, call

her cosmos, call her christmas
loose teeth and fractured breath

Let her be sand through your knuckles,
grit under nails, the pollen your shirt wears

home. She is the perfect language,
with no poem to call

her own.