Katrien’s Jin Shin

you begin me crossing
cautiously ashore an African waterhole
with every pulse you know:
I am the flock of nervous birds that measures
every aspect of your approach
with its million-eyed flinching
a dominion defended in reluctant peripheral take-offs

we both know where we are by the sound featherflap
and the confused vexation of pelicans landed in your wake
pulses folding together like wings to a ribcage
your breath is a hope insisting itself
as you walk gently into the center of it all

and know: when the beaks have stopped.
In the last moment
all the black and gray blotches stand perfectly still.

from above I see you are a miracle listening
because you end me
a white sheet rising
high and lovely in a blue whisper wind