I planted your bones
under the roses and waited.

Tibias and femurs bloomed.
Our moments curved on them,

deep, as your remembrance
in my chest, on my tongue.

Every summer when ripe
and heavy, I will pick them

and make soup. Drink you again
like the last time we kissed. Taste

you, like the last time we made
love. I remember the day I bit

your clavicle and you smiled.
You offered me your fourth rib.

I offered you seven hundred years
of existence. A promise. Yours.

Forty years I’m waiting for you.
Fourteen bones from your toes

to go, to eat, to need. Then, I will spit
you out, bury you again and unearth you

on the seventh moonless month
of the seventh leap year. We’re so

close to meeting again, love. We’ll
have to find someone for the both of us

after, but it’s too soon to think about it.
Tonight, I eat your ossicles. Tomorrow

I’ll water you and keep on waiting.