Scrolls of a Temple Sweeper,
Ninso John High

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There was never a time that didn’t include you. Even if the others don’t remember, it’s fine, she says to the boy. No one will bother or care—that smell of apple & wood chip, a girl walking along the river & she was you and knew it too. All of her hands shifting into birds, or maybe balloons, floating out of your arms. You smell the corn seed in her hair & skin—and you hear the wind & love letters never written and already here & revealed now as you finally read them. The body softening after so much violence—underwood blue jay, stone pile, river run, sky a bit undone.