deep as a tower / was the kiss of my gleaming wildbeak /
            a tapered metamorphosis /

rising with studded jewel-sky promise / caught at midnight with my baby /
            our romance spun tight like a key /

night after night / it’s u tramping up the coiled stairs /
            cage & echofire /

flight after flight / & I let the moonbeams dust out the bedchambers /
            flexing out those calves to preen /

arching my ruffled neck / rattling the cage in hope /
            & we learnt 2gether how yielding u became under me /

when u first blew in from the lashing shorebreak / a rim of salt between ur legs /
            that i would dive to unpearl & how /

ur gift is the breathwork of the whale & ice / the strength of the salt /
            the muscle of the knife dug between the world’s bone /

& it’s true / I’d never thought 2 leap /
            until u told me u would catch me /

still I tried to hold u away from the high window / glistening in distraction /
            ur eye was like a pearl glimmering at the horizon /

& I made u laugh / when I braced against ur ripplethigh to say /
            let me be ur swan girl babe! /

this was our anchor-love / with my faewitch of the blue horizon /
            licking at a wingfold /

& shuddering one more time / with feeling /
            I’d catch u & u’d catch me! /

& I already knew that I couldn’t keep u 4ever / I let u pull me to the ledge /
            u’d done ur musclemagic well /

worked me open to surrender / it was all so crystal-clear like /
            the wish of the melting iceberg /

& its lonely rivulets that ran along ur bicep when we first met / oceanheart /
            I wrapped my wings tight for the plummet /

as we made our tender escape / as I found in the fall /
            that I could finally spread dark & wide /

as the world spread brighter / & drenched in possession I heard u whisper /
            i’ve got u babe & finally /

electric in the silver stormchain that burst behind my wings / & aching I stretched /
            & aching I stretched & something tore /

as I gave u my wings & u did the rest / brine, thirst & truth of ur glamour burning out the
            dark /
            behind us a steeple tower crumbling in our wake /

u & ur magic fingers / worked the world open the way they did me /
a vanquish of the gloaming /
            as we horizon tumbled to the frosted icicle court /

waves of ice shattering at ur touch / & skimming the surface /
            we carried each other /

the falling finally ends between blue & bracken / slowly /
            our feathers shake off the lightning streaks /

& as we come 2 rest now / in the brine of the steady tide /
            2 be here /

2gether / just as a sunrise breaks against us /
            & our thickwet skin.