Amber and Ash

by Toby MacNutt

I like the way your edges fray.
There's room to weave them
into my own tattered selvages,
blurring into whole cloth.
Though our hearts have many homes,
you need no keys
to cross my threshold. 
Wed me with amber and ash;
I am dowered in salt.
Not all families sprout trees,
upright and branching.
Some hang from the boughs,
wrought in gossamer
spider-silk, nodes strung
with dewdrops.
Join yours with mine,
our books intermixed on the shelves,
our limbs tangled over each other.
We've both knelt in our turn,
seen a face upturned, a hand kissed.
Our crowns may be only clover,
but they're sweeter for it.

Toby MacNutt is an artist and teacher who works in dance, words, and textiles. Recently, hir poetry & short stories have been published by Through The Gate, inkscrawl, Liminality, and The Future Fire. Toby's favourite earthly fruit is blackberries, but ze would like to sample the translucent cerulean apples that ripen in the sky just before winter. Find Toby on twitter as @tylluan or at tobymacnutt.com.

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