FREE VERSE Poem: Can I Come With You?, by Lucy Siegel

Can I come with you?
The voice came low,
like a riverbed under moon-sifted dusk.
Come before the match burns down to throat and embered ash.
Forgotten mornings,
love flung like salt on open skin,
silence so dense it fogged the marrow,
I remember.

I come to dwell,
to root your wisp of mind
into the molasses pulse of flesh.
There are worlds here you have not kissed.

Each rib a library,
each scar a word.
My lungs, bellows of grief and grace.
My knees, aching altars to your resilience.
I have dreamed of you dreaming of me,
but you floated elsewhere,
a ghost riding thought.

I am not your burden.
I am your cathedral.

Can we strike the match now –
not to burn,
but to remember warmth?
Can we blow it out
while the flame still dances,
before it devours the land in a final sigh?

Can I come with you?
Stand barefoot in your own holy fire.
Re-inhabit your breath
like it’s the first one you ever took.
Can I meet you in the bones?