it’s strange, how my words
are vibrant now, and safe…

my words are safe in themselves

they used to need your eyes
like vines need their trellis
eyes constant and seeing
and singing in the wind

like that trellis
whose sharp point
kisses the depths of earth
with its piercing pressure
insisting on being
a root descending

that trellis whose strands
thrum beneath my words,
and echo them to the singing winds

but they
(my words,
not the wind,
or the trellis,
or your eyes)
are strong now
and own-rooted
in depths and dirt

and though they
feel the twinge
of regret in your retreat,

they don’t mourn or weep

they are own-winded
in their own-rootedness

they are own-trellised
they are own-sung
they are own-caressed

and the sorrow in the wind?
it is the wind’s tongue in the gap
where my teeth-words used to be