how long this time? I ask, still feeling
the phantom of the swallow beneath me,

the rise and fall of the giant’s chest,
and me on a little boat, waterlogged,

splintered and —

her unweaving the salt
you’re home now, she says, bloodied,

the knife carved out of winter
cutting off the frozen white

pieces of me, the wormflesh.
I own nothing but the way she turns

my name into an anchor
and drops it, stopping the churn,

she cuts off the bruises that held me
together, and the wrinkled white pulp of the dying —

in her hands a knife is a cure
the same way the ocean is a garden

and love is not a noun but a verb
and that ocean is far away, so far

I can remember how she smells of peppermint
and the taste of honey on her skin when the sun hits it

and how the days sometimes fall gently,
the night landing on our forearms like silk —

you’re home now, she says again,
and I believe it.