let us go then, you and I, to where the banks of the river are wet and soft and dark, and the cold water laps teasingly at our bare feet. shoes discarded, like the children we still are, our lithe young bodies twist in the grass and the scars of centuries are soothed beneath the carelessness of reverent fingers.

it's too long we've lived on memories but memories are enough for this. our bodies don't fit together anymore; we are puzzle pieces bent and burnt from the crucible that ripped us apart before it began to shape us—

so how is it, then, that your hands are still so strong and so confident?

some things don't change and haven't changed and will never change, not as long as the earth and sea and sky still meet at the fuzzy purple edges of reality (there will always be the steadiness of bedrock in your eyes, a resting place for the fire in mine)

come closer.

.

when our empire burned i used the flames to forge myself wings while you drowned in the ice that would blunt your fangs and milk your venom dry and on two sides of an iron door we listened to the voices that told us a vow between children is no vow at all that the only way to stand back-and-back is with knives driving

why did we listen?

with every feather that comes loose in your palm the air thickens to hold us: you bare filed teeth at the clouds and weave our fingers together.

.

come on, come on! the summer sun is molten gold on our faces and it lights your hair into a thousand strands of spun amber (amber for luck amber for peace amber that washes up on your shore to adorn your neck and wrists like a prince or a warrior from that time we can barely remember, before you thrummed in my bones, our heartbeats twinned with the rhythm of the river)

not for us, any longer, the cold red evenings, sun swollen in a hazy grey sky. we've shouted and wept until our throats were as bloody as our hands and from that raw redness came redemption, unluck washed clean, and we've earned this day this place this single perfect moment. your ankles are tanned and bony under loosely-rolled trouser legs and there are freckles speckling the dips and curves of your shoulders, the hollow of your throat rising into a jutting ridge of cartilage that moves under my fingers when you laugh, vibrating warm against my ear and why don't you believe your own beauty?

let me love you, darling.

let us go, you and I, together (again) (finally) (forever, if we can manage it)

to where the water shines quicksilver and mayflies glisten green and pink, and we will write our names on the sky a thousand times for every year we missed in cold longing and hot hatred and tears that should have been amber, not rubies

and like a patient on a table I will stretch on my back, gazing up at you with worlds of trust in my eyes.