swaddled herself, extracted her brain through her nostrils
and kept her organs in jars.

Theirs was a love pre-ordained by many gods. She’d read the signs
in the tabloids and made a pilgrimage to his museum.
At his death, scientists estimate he was fourteen. Of course—

by now he was much older. His height was harder to ascertain
from the sarcophagus, but she dreamt of them dancing together
in golden rooms, his dark and brittle fingers inter-

twined with hers, their leather mouths folded into one
mouth, one throat, one withering—passing between them
endless branch-shattering wind.