I read it here in your very word,
in the story of the gestures
with which your hands cupped themselves
around our becoming—limiting, warm

You said live out loud, and die you said lightly,
and over and over again you said be.

But before the first death came murder.
A fracture broke across the rings you’d ripened.
A screaming shattered the voices

that had just come together to speak you,
to make of you a bridge
over the chasm of everything.

And what they have stammered ever since
are fragments 
of your ancient name.