Panic returns at two in the afternoon. My lover reminds me that my eyes are gray when I am sad: storms on a sea. The words fall deep into the hole I occupy. I remind him that I have crossed every ocean to arrive here. I am shivering as if dripping and wet.

What tides surge in your chest, moving you? You who try to hold all of me in your arms when I contain the entire moon.

I used to believe there was bad in my groin. It was proof of a boy’s black hand, forcing my untouched open. I used stiff stitches, canvas thread, salve for my fire’s fits.