You lift my chin as if there’s something under it gathering dust.  

And if we move our shoulders like tectonic plates 

will our bodies quake or will my heartbeat slow 

to a time when I smiled to the moon;

opened my mouth to the howling wind until it was nothing but a black hole

and my hair blew back like streaks of light?

It was low tide and you were nothing 

but the warmth of sunbaked sand. 

Little girls will pray to the waves: the milky surf 

and milky moons with craters like cupped hands.  

But I’m older now and we don’t say much. 

Still, you know the difference between quiet and sad.