I wake before you and in the darkness,

I don’t recognize you right away.

Your lashes bring their own light,

full like fields of crows,

a murder of crows. The birds nested

on the hill I’m sure I’ve told you about

in front of the tomb, white stones holding

each other like people huddled in a storm.

It reminds me of us again, where I’m

holding your hand in the airport and

theorizing about the birth of the floor tiles.

You’re going along with it, saying the

dark spots in the stone cement are the

parts of space that flaked away

when the earth became what it is

because space is dark, you say. I laugh

but I can’t stop thinking about our darkness,

the room filling with each of us.

You know exactly how to hold me to you,

curling me up like smoke from a fire. We are

divided when we learn to fly, but I have broken

my wings for you. I weave my fingers into yours,

and you whisper about how we’ve learned about

space, the fabric of stars clustering around us

in empty homes. There are white stones in the

airport tile, too. I’d like to think they mimicked

the bed sheets, soft and glowing like us and ready

for sleep.