Fourteen Names of God

Sometimes we are given maps
just a few blue lines

like the veins on our mothers' breasts
Green curves, a lizard

curled in your warm hands
this secret, all we own

Now in my dreams we set out again
towards each other

over the mine fields of this life
breathing the sweet air

For more years than you lived
I have tried to learn the words

the grasses tell each other
on summer nights

guarded by fireflies
as in that Tokyo sunset

when you tied my sash
& ran, though braced, still laughing

through the pyrotechnic flowers
towards happiness

I see you still, waving to me
far across the starfields

You have released the balloons
The ribbons slide from my hair

But I hold your faithful map
to the places of dragons

to that tender lair, the far
mountains, the acres of longing