Mourn

This is the silence I must tell, when lips blessed
the taste of goodbye, the taste of salted
holy water comig from eyes, when faces
were thankful for night to hide tomorrow
while it clung to the pressed corners of their mouths.

I found myself reciting back all the moon hymns
that I could remember, looking through the glow
of your cell phone, catching you with streak-lines
and the skin of your brow crumpled down
to the bridge of your nose.

I followed the blood-rush with my fingers,
up from the tops of your ears
to the bottom of your cheekbone,
seeping into the whites of your eyes,
stinging the coffee brown around the black
while reflected streams of light suck
to the edges like fast drying ink.

I told you the silence as you pressed
your ear to the bottom of my collarbone,
so you could feel the poetry under my skin,
crawling up the strings of my spine,

so you wouldn't feel so much
like we were burning.