The crows fly and I watch them. This is the breadth of our relationship. At sunrise they take my right hand and at sunset, my left. 1,000 voices assemble at dawn. But this is no morning song, it’s a riot crowd. A commotion of revelators, each hurling a syllabic contribution to their collective word. And it’s this word that punches through the dream, a dream entwined with the thread of your voice. This is a life set adrift on the lilt of these songs.

The night voice writes visions into the wilding garden. A message from you sends me in pursuit of yellow felt and rose, toward the line-drawn woman and a tumble over a peacock. In the forest, — —– burns neon against humid stone and I send you a photograph. Even in my sleep, I call them birdwords.

I dream of the beach. Of a woman I chase and find and then lose again in a loop of sand and space. Of a playpen half submerged in water and a child playing beneath the waves. I dream of holes in the world at the edge of the ocean. Last night I dreamt with you, but the sun shocked the light we made, knocked its beauty clear. There are holes at the edge of waking and sometimes the light falls through.