the secret word is all in layers
winding like a shroud, or like these water-bearing clouds,
and all the way out to the cocoon of bare nothing
that we shelter from, beneath their rumbling rich buzz of air.
when i extend my bare leg,
and point my bare white foot to the earth, toes folding down to meet,
i touch directly to the mystery of life that clings to it, like mildew, like thought to these bodies,
and nesting within that old fire, a white lodestone like the full moon.
no force in the universe can stop it.
this secret is the only one that holds from the soul
to the black that exhales forever, out there, until there is no more air.
this secret.