Returning to an empty house, there was a hallway
I couldn’t walk alone.

Heavy in my arms was a bowl. Ceramic, cradling
a globe of water, begging to spill.

And there—sunlit, at the end—

was my friend. Crouched
over the mound we had made, just as I’d last
seen him. We were young, and I believed in blind

forgiveness. I was the kind of girl who ran
in and out of rooms
giggling, in utter glee, letting the occupants glimpse

my iridescent sandals and skirt hems
before I’d flee.

Some have patience for a few hours of this. Why he stayed
where I’d left him for a decade, I’m unsure.

He had visited me once before, but never
this kindly.

Or, was I finally ready to admit he wasn’t
a god. Not one I could hurt
without also bleeding. Not one I’d ever want

this whole time
I’d been gone, frolicking amongst women
who thought they were frogs.

This whole time, to him,
unbroken.

He looked up
from what he was doing (clearing the dirt
with only hands)

to see me, embarrassed
to be seen

glittering. Hollow. Looking back

at that moment, I would ask myself
this question, many times—whether what I was
was enough. What he did

then
was not

what an ordinary lover would do.

He laid his body
at my feet and covered himself
with dirt.

Obedient as ever, I knelt
with the heavy globe I was
carrying

and poured.

What happened next
was not
what dirt is supposed to do.

He took my hands in his
and sunk ours both into
the wet earth.

I couldn’t see what he was doing.

I only felt a hole

open up
where there
had been emptiness.

Before I could even call his name, a dance
came to me, from somewhere
beyond the hall, somewhere long

before I was born, when all this was
ordinary: earth, water, love.

Both hands, clasped.

His, cradling
mine, brought to my eyes
the dirt

colored with tears
that formed, and spilled, over everything
they saw.