It’s spring. You speak to me of red birds and constellations tucked behind clouds, of baby axolotls and crickets’ songs surviving. You toss your head and sing of tomorrows brighter than candle-blown, and I hook my foot around your ankle and join in perfect harmony. We are fierce. We raze the world once and raise it twice. We bump elbows in the kitchen and spin quarters on the dining room table and laugh at the roundness of robins. Your vocabulary not rooted in fair exchange, in the natural order, in a cost only I would pay, come time — just your shoulder against mine, the ruffle of your laughter, your fingers warm after a life in the cold. You do not demand my voice in return, nor my hands, nor my mind.

I cannot imagine you yet but I can try.