may I

...press down the cuticle skin round my heart, 

unmold the hardening part of me, 

asking the second question, 

the one hidden in the ripples of another's skin. 

May I slip down to the ground, 

both hands pressed to earth,

wanting to soak in the strength of molten heat

miles beneath me, always just below. 

May I soften, then soften some more, 

fighting off the tight constraints of the labels

I glue to my skin and to the shiny foreheads of others. 

May I tear off all the tags and cleaning instructions. 

May I simply wear the shirt of me, 

and may I place a crown of berries and seeds 

upon my head so that the birds land 

in the brown nest of hair, 

their tiny feet and hollow bones

massaging the firm ropes 

of half trust and cautious hope. 

May those birds sing above me, 

may the sky sing down to me, 

may the moon throw off its grey windbreaker 

and wink its crater eyelashes my direction. 

May a river a half a world away splash round 

me, misty washed by what is here and coming.

May something of this make sense, 

in the way that nothing makes sense, 

how it all is now unraveling 

in bright ribbons of truth, me never expecting

and not wishing away the light, the light, 

the light that always wants to touch my face.