Rune

"Love means you breathe in two countries."
                       ~ Naomi Shihab Nye


I have very few pictures from there
         but now and then I look through them 
to see how light falls like a wound 
         refusing to heal. Sometimes I think
sepia must be the color of love: 
         that means the length of a breath 
quickening the distance between this 
         moment and all the ones in which 
we haven't yet made our lives harder 
         than a rusk of bread to crumble
in a cup of coffee. Now, I find
         an insomnia of stars buried in
the flesh of fruit. I pick at the white
         pith that spreads like a net
across a globe I can hold in my hand.
         But is it always going to be  
too late? A month before you were born, 
         I walked the hills by myself 
in a heavy sweater, watching my breath write
         unreadable letters in the air. I still
can't figure out whether they spelled time or
         estrangement or anchor; or were merely 
random shapes of a future refusing to be read.