branches

This is not love.
We can be certain.

These arms may connect us
or reach
away
yet-
only a knot
knows what was
once there.

And I have started to lose feeling
after clenching so long
the words or a similar
breeze to bring me closer
to you.

Instead I hang
precariously
numb.

A heartwood drains
down my
whitened clasped hand

an indistinct ring-
ing in the ears
is calling for Us
to let go of dead weight
before the wood
turns to bone

without love
there was no way to tell
how high we were
there was no way
we should be certain
to survive the fall.



Painting by Charles Reginald Aston, between 1852-1908 in Public Domain.