If I had cast the runes
before we met would they
have told me of our collision?
How we would come together
like asteroids, burning through
sky? How for one this would
only be a perihelion but the
other would blaze to earth.
If I had cast the runes
would they have told me of
my unfolding, smoothing out
the creases of habits, talismans
held up against the darkness
of my own desires? Of brittle limbs
turned to clinging liquid in the
flaring heat of our fleshly worship?
If I had cast the runes
would they have told me
how a heart can break open
and break again over itself?
How it feels like nothing will
ever recover? But it's only the skin
of a snake cracking and peeling
back to let a larger creature out
