Let Ariel learn a blessing for Caliban and Caliban drink dew from the lotus open upon the waters. - Denise Levertov

The world is
not with us enough
O taste and see

the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

I wanted
to know all the bones in your spine, all
the pores of your skin,
tendrils of body hair.
To let
all of my skin, my hands,
ankles, shoulders, breasts,
even my shadow,
be forever imprinted
with whatever of you
is forever unknown of me.

Just when you seem to yourself nothing but a flimsy web of questions, you are given the questions of others to hold in the emptiness of your hands, songbird eggs that can still hatch if you keep them warm, butterflies opening and closing themselves in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure their scintillant fur, their dust. You are given the questions of others as if they were answers to all you ask. Yes, perhaps this gift is your answer.