If you needed the moon from its silver track,

I’d stretch my bones until they cracked and thinned,

And think the aching in my aching back

Was just the feeling of the night wind.

If you needed a fortress, safe and grand,

I’d pull my ribs apart, a curving frame,

And find a purpose for the bloody sand

That made the mortar, speaking your name.

To be your bridge when the river runs severe,

My spine the arch against the cold flood’s might—

To feel each stone the current claws, and hear

Your safe footsteps above me in the night.

It is not martyrdom, this quiet trade,

Nor some grim debt I’m solemnly assigned.

It is the deepest peace I’ve ever made:

To know my use, to be of use, defined.

So take the oxygen right from my air,

The steady beat that my own heart employs.

I’d watch it leave with a contented stare,

And call the suffocation, “joy.”