“Nathaniel” is such a pretty word for waking up and finding me alive beside you wanting to feel it over and over again, until it stops feeling like anything at all: until I’m so accustomed to you and am finally awarded the pleasure of waking up some other morning far from here and being caught by the light came through the window and in plenty of time to remember… To learn to love is to cherish: the act of invoking lost feelings; lost sight and the foolishness, first of having learned your name to begin with. If you are truly “Of God, given” let it be to preach us humility in speech; reveal the points at which the righteous, breathless spare all words to sate us pleasure and instead find in the oceans of grief passed like fence posts between us a path to further grace– will you hurt me in the way we both remember, or instead find power from the shame of having lost what we now find, together, wasted on the young–? Need I locate some centre of my being, or prefer this taste of a great and terrifying exposure– of cartwheels in the clover? May priests turn their heads and the sun kiss my brow: be brave with me, Oh(!) brother of David and let us leave this kingdom far behind– to find the shady place between the trees; of a studied way to pass the time as if all we ever needed was one more barefoot double rainbow by the river never to part again.