Count As Witness Poem by Jack Redmen

Count as witness to the fusion in your chest, your bindbreaths that
call down creation; Count as witness this applecore heart of mine.

Only in my bones do I dare keep you. And they would hold as adamantine
chains your light. And you would crack them open, and spill out into
the world my marrows and stems and bloodrinds to mix with your oxygen
and to collect under your fingernails.

And into the soil would you work me with your hands, and the rains
would take me down to the streams, and up into the sycamore and birch
leaves, and to your lips as you cradle a palm of my river to drink.

And if you rend not my bones, and bury ne'er again my applecore heart,
then I shall burn wild and ceaseless for the trees, and for the rains,
for your lungs and your lips. I will grow old, and the wrinkles in my
brow and in my hands will begin to let forth your light. My breaths
will shorten as I try still to breath for you and for me, and I will
fall away from this world.

And your light I would have kept in the shells of my heart, to burst
again when the wind whispers of me, and the sun still sings your name.