​shadows tell tales
to the moon glow 
slow merge
say / say again / say in-between
bacteriogenesis on the surface of the heart
no, never alone
we are written together
between reef and tide

our divide
is thorny and distraught
temperature drops
from inner to surface body
enough for me
i could call it, maybe
dove of ashes
or ashen dove
i blink out
the autobiography between us
i will always have the courage
to not finish this poem
 
recorded river
bed of biographers
fluids trickling out
in the futurity of lands
so little left
reading stalls at the point
where your throat meets the waves
i wet my lips
in your same river twice

---

toino dumas resides on the unceded territory of the Omàmìwininìwag/Algonquin nation; her tools include herbalism, poetry, and queer magic. They have published several books, but most of their work is silent, hovering between celebration and betrayal.

Arielle Burgdorf is a PhD student at UC Santa Cruz studying feminist and queer translation from Québec. They have work published in Tasteful Rude, Maximum Rocknroll, Crab Fat Magazine, X-Ray Literary Magazine, and others. Their chapbook, I am an Unhappy Male Painter, is forthcoming from Greying Ghost Press. They were also a Lambda Literary Emerging Fellow for 2021.