I needed money. There’s no poetic way to say this.
Even so, when you touched my face, brought my
cheeks to the nook of your neck, I burrowed into it—
a firefly seeking shelter from winter, far
underground. Then,

          you told me there’s no application form that can hold
          the entirety of a life, because our days constantly spill like wine.
          Imagine that, you said, apricot tones all over the page!

          you told me about your ferns, bejeweled with jade dew,
          their coiled fiddleheads full of unfulfilled,
          twirling futures, and I forgot about my fixation with earning
          people’s respect, among other things for which
          I’d been told it was proper to plead
          until granted.

          you told me, if immigrants could enrich a country,
          you didn’t want to know
          our melting point and whether we would shine
          brighter than gold.

          you told me how I could stop confusing belonging
          with belongings,  good with  goods, by sharing
          the way our hearts continue to beat
          resilient, even without an assurance of worth.

          you told me there can be solace in a dead end, in knowing the sea
          still collapses, still runs and soars carrying its broken
          shells, somewhere out there. And then,

                      you buried a kiss in the dark
                      earth of my hair. I believed it all.
                      What else could I do?