The last time, they hoisted me too fast,
and I lay on the deck
like a dying skate, the meat beneath

my breastbone bruised by rough
blood. My father ended this way,
his last descent boiling in him,

but not before he taught me
to maneuver tides as dense
as melted glass and to read

the faceless aspect of the hoarding
shell.This was before men sowed
jewels as easily as if they were wheat,

back when they needed boys
with speed and the kind of knowing
I had. Down there I weighed the world

in breaths and understood the cost
of burying one deep within myself,
of following it back to sky.

Pleidian

No one can harm
the stars in their work
or untangle their light,
a fistful of sisters,
veins filled with loam
of other gardens. The moment
has gone blue, like night
entering his head, the center
of him aching in a different
language. Notes hollow
a wooden house he has
vacated, the suits and shirts
leaking years into a country
that was never old.

 Vera

 Kroms