I leaned against your name, perfectly rendered. It was given you by your father, and you gave it to me. I feel the cool of your touch in the summer afternoon, the reminder that you love me and welcome my visits as much as I crave you as if you were here. Your body is lithe and strong, from working the fields, and the scent of earth and sweat cling to you, like home. Scars of fence and falls make you more beautiful, and I have memorized each one as I searched your body, every night for the places that only I belonged. Your breath fills me with fire and readiness and hunger. Our autumn planting bore the bounty of the summer harvest, and her beauty outshone the constant sun.  

I cried to her dates, closer together than the sides of her crib. A space too short by anyone’s standards. The words above them a corn cob angel, a fragile, dusty rendition of the divine, brought to earth to shatter under the weight of this hard life. A sorry trade, these words for this spark of heaven. And i would have traded hers for his.

I dropped my burden on his dirt. Flowers that I brought because I had to. Something expected of offspring, and which will dry and decay until the weather crumbles them. He created me, but did not make me, for I would not lose my soul, as he did: smoke into ashes, settling onto barren soil. His breath, almost flammable, ignited my fury and my blame. I would trade his for hers.

Today, I lean against your name. The coolness on my back like the earth I share with you. I am tired, the work never ceases, and the hope never comes. Tonight, I will stay and sing to you, until my voice fades, quieter than the crickets, and till only the hills call back. Next week, they will put my name next to yours, and I will be home.