I carved your bones
into a tree.

I found you in velvet petals
powder-pressed with pollen—

suddenly sullen inside
a dried apricot carcass,

leather feathers matted in earth.
Your mouth smeared

with pomegranate: seeds
sparkling from tiny teeth,

lips in the shape of an omen.
I know the song inside

a splinter of light
at the trunk, collecting.