Wild grapes grew in a torrent

above the hill, the vines

billowing over a wall so old

my sisters and I could roll

the stones out with our fingers.

Grapes overfilled our skirts,

our hands. We peeled

them with our teeth, held

the naked globes to our eyes

to track the climbing sun.

We packed our mouths

to feel their skins pop

in a chorus of honey.

isn’t this, but is. The comma, for emphasis

because his life is immediate down to his nesting,

small breath. We quit speaking once,

when the syphilis was back, during winter —

never snow touching the ground. Only semen,

coconut milk licking his lips.

I told him This isn’t it — we’re at it again

and the moon is out tonight. I could see him,

[A strange girl.

She wanted to be a pilgrim

and so ate salt for three days.

Now she knows how to be vast

and compassionate. And yet she too

will be drowned in the sea.]

[At the burning of offerings

inside the room we appease the ghost.

Lift up our arms

and watch the women around us

turn into birds.]

[Who are you to talk of a woman’s breasts]

[I have been left in warm sand.

From plume to basin, molecule to mortar, this flawed forgetting

flows, this cascading remembrance claws, clamors. And maybe

I was built to forget the topography

of your nose so I could remember the next

man’s eyes, coins I collect from corners

and floors to leave in crumbs at the bottom

of my purse. Maybe I was built to forget your tongue

on my thighs, your shower towel, how it soured

my nose,