Dispatch From the Future We Never Had
We were caught in a blue madness.
I wanted to be your shadow
and you wanted to be mine. Nowadays
you sit on the couch, holding
my feet in your hands and cry
only at another movie character death. I flick
the TV on and off the way we used to
gather ice in our mouths
to see who could become the numbest.
How cold was it before we came back
together? Remember when we ran
into each other at the art gallery
where a man danced in a long purple gown?
The first time after things ended. Looking
at each other from across the room
was like looking at clouds. We each felt
we could imagine any shape
for the other, knowing it didn’t matter—
if we got too close it would fall apart. We stayed
as long as we could, apart, remembering
the lemon-price of love: the soured out
faces the soul makes when biting down
again and again on the same problem. Our eyes
circling each other like dogs in the park.
When we finally spoke, we both admitted:
i miss you. And we stood in silence
wishing missing was enough.
couples therapy
I drive us out the front gate
of your neighborhood, past the stoplight
where, once, I missed
the light turning green
because I had leaned over
to kiss you on the cheek
and in that extra three seconds
a car barreled through the intersection
at speeds high enough to kill us,
and hold your hand
driving toward the generic office park
both of us taking turns
being silent for a year
the same streets and buildings turning
over in our heads as we move them
through us, radio on or off, doesn’t matter
now though mostly off
and in the parking lot we wait
in the Miami summer heat
I try to catch a lizard
scaling a thin dead tree
we take turns crying
for a year, on and off
occasionally holding
the other’s face we believe
if we keep a good grip
it will not disappear.
sacrament
Heartbreak is a little priest
hiding in a lake.
A trail of fingers
floating in the water
between islands.
A house where a kid watched
hydrangeas bloom in the backyard
then set them on fire.
I am not the memory
of a shotgun
but there is a door in my heart.
A crevice resembling
the black of your pupils
and a child sitting in that darkness
asking to be taken home.
And the hope that it’s not too late
to put him to sleep.
For you and I to tuck ourselves
back into each other,
the nurses’ corners of our skin
coming loose
when we last pulled away.
Years ago, in a northern city
the sidewalk became ice
beneath our feet as we stood
on a street corner arguing all night.
Only two weeks together
and already falling apart.
For so long, we lived like two fish
trying to remember water.
I wanted to confess
everything to you even after
I had no breath to do so.
