The was such a place,
supple and infernal,
love breathing and
liquid beating.
Where the Yuhina’s,
recumbent on their
straw beds, breathed
as part of us.
But hammered by tongues,
and weeping verse –
one-by-one a sickness came.
Now, alone in their beds
they shine with loneliness
and there is no breath between us.
Just a form in our hands
and our lips, like a
stone against the sky.
A hard temple,
with plum rain falling –
murmuring the midnight hour.
All that we have left.