Not-so-special Love

so when love spoke your name,
I bathed it in turmeric and sandalwood,
placed it in a temple of skin and stone,
rising at dawn to pick the first snake flower,
more pink that the open lips of the sky,
to offer wordless to its unopened eyes;
not that this love was special,
I have felt more for sunrises,
for the golden pause between rose and the hovering wing,
even for newspaper boats lying on their side
in the spent chatter of yesterday’s rain,
but there was something in your eyes
as you stared up at the sky,
like you understood why we lay on the earth,
not talking,
skin on skin, stone on stone,
there was something in the way you touched my face,
suddenly everything in order,
marching in a straight line,
stars and rain and promises and trees,
everything moving
like a waterless river in sightless spate,
holding on to a single unravelling thread of light;
I had to leave you there
and keep walking, a river, a lover, a continuum,
moving inside the warm lung of the wind,
eating bits of moon at night,
rising at dawn, in the blush of awakening,
to pick a flower for the love that waits,
a not-so-special love that sees through the sky,
that unspools the light,
that knows why I walk
barefoot with clouds in my wake,
skin on skin, stone on stone,
splashing through yesterday’s rain,
not talking.