lounging in your maroon dress at the end of my sentence—

your sweaty hand reaching out into the silence, always

sipping on the hush of a lover who swears off erotic

pleasure—the split between poplar & tree—the pressure

to live off the surface of your cold, cold knees. Because

my loaded, rupturing heart sinks down in reflection pools

at the center of that old cemetery—now, bird sanctuary.

Come with me & whisper conspiratorially—the only

way I know how—to the red cardinals writing poetry

on the burial site of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—

he has rested long enough—so long we have arrived

at that terrible precipice, again. Say we live in his death

box with the third wall cut out like a diorama, & we are

made of clay—remade by something traceable—not dust

but the curvature of your pursed lips. You are the line I

hold in my chest with too much certainty—I cannot

release you without this pause about how I am angry

with the gentleness of your teeth—the stinger to your

bee—boomerang of history—O, how we threw it—

throw it all back to the sky—