It wasn't as bad as I had imagined. No magma no lava
looping down the side of the mountain or bright singe breaking
through earth. In the fissured kitchen mugs tapped against each other –
a glittery sound not unlike jewelry, teeth –
when I fell to the ground I saw your face in the way
one does when disoriented by sound, a high-
pitched frequency that rang out your mouth moving
with language-form basking in the weight of word on tongue your
name sitting there with me your face illuminated
by the tap tap tap of the fused-out lamp your hands
that find my vertebrae all lined up marble-hard
a formation at once heat-seeking and cold there was
an idea I couldn’t remember couldn’t hold
in my head couldn’t find the shape of it.
When you hook a hand through my bicep there it is
the brief relief the sanded texture
of your fingers bringers of the ordinary
of what will give form to the formless.