“
It was spring when we walked
together
and you taught me the names of the flowers.
Lily of the valley, pear blossom, Carolina jessamine.
You turned your face to me and I felt that I had
loved you since the billowing sheet of Chaos.
How am I to go on living
after having felt that?
O, do you remember. Our many, many befores.
Maybe you hear them, stirring
from a room in you that is older
than womb. You and I did carry
candles down castle corridors as children once.
And we baked bread, and we filled pies!
We wore moonstone on our twisted fingers.
You were boy and I was fish
and when you pulled me from the water I glistened
and your father was proud.
In the kitchen that evening you cut a lemon
and squeezed a sliver
over me, giving me
moon, rain, the promise
that we would live again someday.
—lyra and the thrush
; heaven fay
