Gathering the Garden Together || Fragments

01/ a locked gate to the garden

02/ a forgotten key, shaped as a raven’s wing, lies in the bottom drawer of a writing desk

03/ —the garden waits impatiently,

04/ a persistent flowering even in the folds of the body—spreading beyond borders of garden walls, the gestures of flirtation—

05/ or the territories of your body beside my own— in bed as ruined temples, the forest invading, slowly covering the convent’s garden paths,

06/ you become my garden, my early paradise of figs, pomegranates, a territory established with order, measured restriction, a gated orchard ripened,

07/ the garden of your body transformed

08/ to acreage of wilderness unclaimed, to the world as all field, your body shifting to garden, to a copse of trees, to a gravel path

09/ even the garden of your name exists within the realm of possibilities and obtainable goals

10/ the map of your body leads to unseen gardens, locked gateways, blocked passageways— and I grow confused

11/ the monks of a saint with an unpronounceable name often sit in their garden at vespers

12/ your mildest gesture echoes the spiritual silence of a holy book, closing in the prayer gardens of Cypress

13/ or the sound of a page turning over, a leaf drifting, the garden gate’s latch connecting

14/ There is a sense of completeness when the moon rises out of folds of ivy in an abandoned garden

15/ your shadow clings to the garden of my name