Fingers swirling like water to a sinkhole
Halima touches the swell,
Whirlpools darkening at her navel,
She waits
As her husband
Takes his fill,
Syruping her fever,
Roping her hair into necklaces, knuckled glass, chuckling, a phantom
pain packing insanity and laughter and windows clear enough to look through.
Pause that knock.
Ask if this is okay. If this is true.
If blood is red.
If fire can sear skin with no smoke.
She whispers a prayer into his pillow, sweating, swearing
Her mother’s maiden name, losing to the cave he fills,
Overturning seasons like leaves spinning in the wind.
Men, she sighs, have become more
Fickle than sycamore seeds.
Cave
