Salt & Cinder

The sea keeps our secrets in a black-lipped shell,
and the fire tongues each one to the bone.
We meet in the narrow between tide and ash,
where footprints fill and sparks get married to wind.
You say I am flint. I say you are tinder.
We argue until the shore learns our pattern.
Your mouth: a lighthouse turned to mischief.
My throat: a bell that rings for shipwreck.
Still, we float, holy and ruined together,
two saints of undoing with rings of smoke.
If heaven is distance, we make it near.
If hell is closeness, we make it kind.
Salt on your wrist, cinder on mine
we taste and swear, and call it wine.