How much our hands are God’s

to be running fingers over braille cities.

We are this hand pushed through our womb.

Weeping with each other’s blood in our eyes.

I dreamed that I slept with the light on.

I was asleep in my mother’s bed because my father was out to sea

and my claim

Not vinegar. Not acid. Not
sugarcane pressed to mortar by
fist, but salt: salt, the home taste; salt,
the tide; salt, the blood. Not Holy

Ghost, but a saint of coral come
to life in the night crossing a
field of brambles and thorns, the camps
of pirates beat back to the bay

The trees alongside the fence
bear fruit, the limbs and leaves speeches
to you and me. They promise to give the world
back to itself. The apple apologizes
for those whose hearts bear too much zest
for heaven, the pomegranate
for the change that did not come
soon enough. Every seed