while exiled from God

we
     sought sky
     encountered every island
     wrote true inside our own dark places
     grew lost in the shadows of our notebooks

the distance seemed small

once only did we kiss
until the ancient minarets burned
    purple and gold
    purple and gold

you seldom recall

finding the purple of old waters
sketching things far out at sea
writing red mornings
as malaria turned through the sky

the scents wandered green
among malnourished foreigners
their bright hands wounded with gold

on and on she roamed

her heart beat labyrinth-like
for gone men whose notebooks of America
narrowed across the flirting distance
like things growing among grass
worked by tourists’ eyes
scrounging through the city’s shadow

on and on she roamed
until the ocean was nothing new
discarding small possessions
only foreigners tried to understand
more turquoise than true

in the end her rusted eyes closed in on just one man
her unhinged breezes piled up in his sun
during her malnourished days she longed to find his room
its waters near to morning sky
rising gold and exiled
above the hours of her dull and wasted life