Memento Mori

Sara Henning




Do not interrupt me—what I have to say will not

have the space to make its own body, toil the winter

in its birth blood; in fact, the words float away like birds,

rise, cling in the autumn context; if you go now,

you will never know the shape they take in flight, sentences

drifting low in the belly, tight aperture.

I only wanted to tell you how my body feels when it rains,

that I want your hands to catch the excess, your body

to be what the water is not—

dredge up the sun by definition, go hollow except

for the words beating down.

They might drown out the earth with their longing.