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 like a mirror but not smooth or clear, distorted by temperature, a lake we did not walk upon. Water we could not drink.