My tongue hard, trampled red

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My tongue hard, trampled red
from sleeplessness
—what more can I say?

The sky I rub over your eyes
and over your hand the rain all night
as footprints somehow are smoothed
—not a sign anything was said
and the air brushed clear again.

Whatever I say is covered with flowers
with this sky fed constantly
so it will never leave
—not just breakfast, or noon
or Spring but endless, eats and eats
from these plates you dead
hold out :each gravestone

on edge or when some birthday card
or a ticket home or my arm
around your breath returning
from sunlight and candles.

What do I say to you
when the sky hardly remembers
its darkness higher and higher
that the sun come home

and when you squint
helping me look for the exact spot
where impatient clouds still leap
from the sun and even the Earth
coming back to its still warm arms.