Particular Words in a Specific Order

pine-swaddled river
my body rests in damp silt 
and yours, down below

Dawn rises faster than the stones sink 
sunlight gleaming on your open eyes 
but the pines’ shade    still   concealing your form 
I let my words flow out and drift on the surface 
of the river, where they sink to the silt 
heavy from the weight of their sin

All encompassing, r e vol  ting, insatiable sin 
it tears apart the pines behind me; they sink 
and dam the river with bark and silt 
draining the water, revealing those eyes 
of yours, frozen, the way they broke the surface 
carefully harboring them, carelessly ruining your form

And how unlike you, this form 
is this all some result of our sin? 
did you ask to slip beneath the surface? 
did      you               w     an t       to         sink! 
I am sorry, I say to your eyes 
but this weight sticks to me, mud, muck, silt

And like stones, I can feel my feet slipping into silt 
snapping bones and twisting my form 
all the while, your cruel and glassy eyes 
judging my weakness and calling it my sin 
my  bile   rises    as             my  body       sinks 
and the mud drags me below the surface

I can look up and see the surface 
in my mouth, my lungs, I breathe the silt 
and I fear that the river where I made you sink 
is just as well your resting place as my form 
of reparation, this payment for     sin 
committed under the gaze of none, the pines’ eyes

In the deepest dark, on blinded eyes 
I spot a different surface 
and waiting for me there, my sin 
as I am spit out by the ceiling of wet silt, 
I am a        shadow     self,   a    broken form, 
I am a rope and stone, ready to sink

See the unbidden tear exhumed from my silt,                            ripped to my surface 
To show for it,                      your broken form,     still judging with those eyes 
And me,     with the pines                           and sun,        
                                                           and stones                            waiting to sink,       
                                                                                                                                                         ready to sin

2018