We did not believe in anything,
salt stayed away from our shoulders
even our shadow did not follow.

Wistfully we untied our fingers,
spoke every prayer backward, waited
for emptiness, the pure abandonment of it.

Our hearts became ponds,
shallow inlets of water. Cold,
the one word we said without guilt.

We named each other.
What covered our hunger
was a mirror

but not smooth or clear,
distorted by temperature, it was
a lake we could not walk upon.

Water we dare not drink.