You fell around my hand like prayer beads, spilling your hair, you fell down my arm and slithered to the bed.
Aphrodite, I’m sorry, trying to catch you failed.
Perhaps I should have been there first as you poured from the sea,
like this moment, falling over me, crashing against eager shores.
I have tried to capture soft lips, cage them
and kill them, and hear them sing praise,
and a lily floating in a bowl of water,
is the monk’s only way, to understand.
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