What comes after

I pretend my fingers are people. They say things that I can’t, like I think your dress is ugly. This is more than memory, more than faith. This heat between our bodies, a hiding place for small birds, regret. Remember the summer you almost drowned? How your head stayed just below the water’s surface, how you watched the sky turn grey, then black? Everything was a miracle after that, the barn with a hole in its roof, your father’s leather belt, even your torn, welted flesh. What comes after deep water is deeper water. Stillness is a lake waiting for its coverlet of crows.