I will not lose
myself in you.
You will be water;
I will be clay,
unyielding until
you fill me. Then
even before I am fired,
my coiled clay
will hold you
lightly.
The electric charge
between our particles
and surface tension
will hold us together
tentatively as rain
whose beaded drops
spill on the leaf.
You will not lose
yourself in me.

Upend me
and I will pour.
I know the pulley’s rhythm,
the pail suspended
above the well,
emptied,
then replenished.

I will be the lungs
and you, the air
I breathe—
never truly one
and yet together
more than we are
alone.
The lungs never
overpower
the air.
The air yields,
yet never submits,
being an escape artist,
like the cat.

I will not lose
myself in you,
and yet, with each
exchange, I will
give myself
to you, grain
by grain, like the grains
of clay that coat
the dandelion’s rootball.