2007 Honorable Mention

CELESTE BREWER

GEMINI

A trick I learned in the mountains:
press your palm to mine
close our fingers, thumb to thumb,

and when our hands make a mirror
run opposite thumb and forefinger
over the coupled width of our knuckles.

Half of what you clasp evokes a telegraph
wire on the seafloor—the first between two
continents, dead in the mid-Atlantic.

I remember dusk rinsing your face in indigo—
I remember your body dissolving
in the iris sky—my hands fading with you.

That night rises now, fogging my breath
as it coils and dissipates in the cold
like the first, sparse flurries of autumn.

I understand you have felt as a river must
to see leaves curl into themselves and fall
translucent—ice creeps across your back

while the moon recedes.  But stars
burn regardless, even in the moon’s
black absence. The river grows

luminous as our palms, joined as Gemini
rises silver on the horizon—
Feel the heat radiate between us.