Two Bodies

Cold rain threading through the valley Telephone wires shaking in the wind You leaned your weight against my shoulder without saying what was wrong Past the guardrails the quarry filled slowly with black water Somewhere deeper in the trees something metallic kept banging loose Your hands smelled faintly of smoke from warming them over the gas station heater And for a while neither of us tried to explain the silence correctly We gave our blood to things that never learned our names So pull me through the flood again Through the salt and the smoke and the sleepless dark Every scar still glowing beneath the surface I was never clean Only alive The tide keeps dragging at our feet Like the ocean wants the dead returned Sometimes I wake already clenching my jaw before the room fully returns The hallway light under the motel door still enough to stop sleep completely You stopped touching me suddenly whenever I flinched first Outside the forest kept folding against itself in long black movements between the rain Eventually everyone develops habits they can’t explain politely And part of me still misses the disaster once the quiet settles too long We gave our blood to things that never learned our names So pull me through the flood again Through the salt and the smoke and the sleepless dark Every scar still glowing beneath the surface I was never clean Only alive I hear trucks shifting gears beyond the coastline Loose shutters cracking in the storm Everyone breathing harder than the night seems to require NO MIRACLE NO SIGNAL Only two bodies waiting for morning to decide against us The tide keeps dragging at our feet Like the ocean wants the dead returned