Folding

Folding
    Rut respondió: 
    "no insistas en que te deje, retirándome de ti: 
    porque adonde tú vayas iré yo, 
    y donde tú mores moraré yo.  
    Tú pueblo será mi pueblo, 
    y tú Dios será mi Dios.  
    Donde tú murieres, moriré you, y allí seré sepultada.  
    Que Yahvé me castigue de todos maneras si otra cosa que la muerte me separe de ti."

    And Ruth answered: 
    "Please, please.  Entreat me not to leave you, or thrust me away from you:
    Where you go, I will go, 
    and where you pitch your tent will I sleep.  
    Your people will be my people, 
    and your God my God.  
    Where you die, there will I lay me down, and be buried.  
    God watch over me that nothing but death ever keep me from you."
                                       -The Book of Ruth

How fast do minds have to run
before they catch up with what's in the soul?
fold paper forward
fold the soul back
fold the ingredients together until
they aren't what they were
but something else altogether.

The mind folds into itself
a sharp edge at the corner
carefully sharpened
carefully
not to cut the finger that folds
a red cut to match the red lips
the sunlight red through closed lids.

Two ingredients
equal parts of equal partners

Open your eyes now
the red still there
the question still in the air and the answer breaking the birth water
I'm drowning in you and watching you breathe again
will this breath fuel your next word
or fuel my insecurities further?

Life forms the long question mark,
curled around us as we curl around each other
naked in this bed
your hair tickling my leg
folded up under yours
following the fold of your elbow with my index finger

Breathe again
the heat on my cheek
your nose pressed to my face now
your eye dark and deep
as close to mine
an inch away now

Breathe
and your chest pressed against mine, now
now-love a question for the then-love

We only have less than this day
this breath
this air hanging between the question and the answer
folding us together
or apart
and no space between us now
between the beat of my heart and your heart
the seconds tick
the breaths tick
the answers tick
the clock
and 
wait
  wait.
    Wait
-Tim Allen
Antigua, Guatemala, August 1998
Copyright 1998 Tim Allen