Slowly this coral
braces for the back and forth
by changing colors
 
beginning with moonlight – in time
the leaves become tea, gutted
the way an old woman with beads
 
weighs your palm for riverbeds  
then spreads each finger
whose only memory is the darkness
 
that helps you breathe
underwater till it burns out
smells from emptiness
 
and standing in a circle while you drink
from a cup filled with some meadow
overgrown, forgotten, all at once.