I think I am building a chair

but I am digging a river.

I am hammering

the gap between days

with a tooth pick

hoping for oil.

There’s a week

where you are a nun

sitting beneath a pile of glass.

And another where light

is in the clouds

and can’t escape.

It’s April.

There are many weeks

untouched

by the humidity

of your breath on my cheek.

Outside, when the pond scapes

the land,

when land pools

at your feet, warm dirt.

I let go of wet sidewalks.

I let go of the dog

that attacked me

being a sign to call you.

I let go of a train ride

five years ago

thumbing a nickel in my pocket,

lonely as a hole.

My desire for you

is an empty box

cut flat at the edges.

I lie down in my thoughts.

Black beetles wriggling in my ear,

a year ago

I would’ve crushed them

with my left shoe

and tossed them out the door.

Out the door

there’s a Florida field

where I learned violence

sixteen Aprils ago.

The diseased turkey I chased

into a briar

at eleven years old

to impress an adult

who did not tell me

what would happen next.

Stones

were my thoughts.

For years, before

I met you

I told this story on dates—

stopping at the capture

of the bird

with my bare hands

not mentioning the snap

or the silence after

the turkey stopped spinning

in his fist.

Not mentioning

even to you, who knew me

better than anyone,

the tears I fought back

when handed 100 dollars

for my trouble,

becoming a man.

When it was done

and the light became untrapped

from the clouds, hitting

my child face

I saw a mattress floating

in the distance

on the river behind

the limp turkey.

It was not sinking.

I never got the chance to tell you:

I was thinking of ways

to make it sink.

Hours we spent

planting orchids on the tree.

I cared nothing.

I cared for nothing

but you.

Now, in June

on a park bench in a different city,

I push a pin tack

deeper into my thumb

to remember.

Steady breath.

Everyday I move

between wanting

to apologize

and wanting to scream

for this:

I could not understand

how you felt

until you made me

feel the same way.

You handed me

a plastic skull

you had carried around

your entire life.

Then you made it real.

We didn’t drift apart.

House parties,

oranges and cherries

inert in their green

clay bowls. You,

already weeping.

Giving you me

which you could not hold.

Demolition is lovely.

It creates room

for your thoughts

to move into the emptiness.

The words

I offered you

like lassos for clouds.

Throwing the rope

over and over.

I could not pull them

closer, only apart.