By mary crockett hill

draw your thumb down the surface of this stone

knot and dent thrum like bone

the knot of sky, the dent of lip—

where a river refuses to forget

the gravity that moves it

this is my body

given for you; do this and this and this—and if you do,

which will be forgiven, which erased?

which word gives the slip?

you did forget: i am the word. do this.

i’ve washed your enemy’s tongue with my own.

i’ve washed your enemy. i am my own.

and that fleck of light on the broad side of the hill,

o light in a basket of light—

is this worth

my telling?

will the sky wait for

my kiss?

Mary Crocket Hill is the author of the poetry collections If You Return Home with Food and A Theory of Everything, and the novel How She Died, How I Lived.