I choked down a peach & the pit
became my heart, its grated edges

catching against my wet ribs.
I sang between midnights, ashamed

of my pit-heart, how it beat beneath
a full moon & launched its ship

out, fearless, into the stars. I taught
caution; it disregarded.

A tree
ghosted up my throat, my tongue

turned leaf. I sprouted rot
behind my teeth, lost my voice,

crossed a desert on my knees; learned
a thousand words for thirst. Months later,

once I staggered home, I couldn’t conceive
of an unimperiled life, so I raised

a stone wall around my whole perimeter,
the plaster mixed from mud

that held my footprints & the threat
of rain & the pain of excising my sins.

The sky bloomed with mercy until I fell
back in love with the smells of winter, forgave

an entire roster of trespassers. At last I
returned to the work I was born for:

I fostered stories, nursed them until
they could be released back into the wild,

or set free on the river; I lured
turtles to my backyard with a trail

of mango slices leading to the rock pool & tattooed
a hibiscus on my palm.

Out at the border of the solar system,
my pit-heart turned back, beckoned

me. Heavy as a garden, full as a forest,
I let go the thin blue string looped

around my wrist. A pit-heart can go
gallivanting, painting, dancing, play

the tourist – but once rooted, the body
left behind must just endure it.