I am okay
at writing poems about love,
but bad at actually loving.
Okay at walking through the rain
and thinking that each drop upon my skin
is like a tiny burst of love
but bad at actually loving.
Okay at basketball
and knowing the names of trees,
but bad at actually loving.
Okay at offering
advice to my friends about love,
or preparing a meal with love,
or being aware of the fact
that I am being bad at love
while I am being bad at it,
but bad at actually loving.
Okay at mythologizing and regurgitating
memories of love years later,
but bad at actually loving.
Okay at loving you
when you’ve fallen asleep in my arms
and I run my fingers through your hair
and feel your steady,
peaceful breathing
and my one job is to lie still
so as not to wake you.
Okay at loving you
in those narrow moments,
but I always wake you up
in the end by accident
by turning the pages of my book
or adjusting the pillow
or reaching over
to turn off the lamp—
and in the sphere of that silence
there is no greater crime
than disrupting your steady,
peaceful breathing. So I turn
to my attorney, who is a giant
praying mantis.
He explains the plea deal
the court of insects is offering:
one half of the rest
of whatever forever turns out to be.
Just a half, he says, nudging me.
In that moment, his expertise
is palpable. This
is a praying mantis
who has honed his knowledge and skill
through long, earnest hours of training.
He understands the legal process
and he is gazing at it calmly,
hoping I will be reasonable.
But what also
becomes terrifyingly palpable
is my realization that such expertise
can be so powerful and self-sustaining
it ceases to reflect reality.
I open my mouth
to explain myself,
but as I do my attorney
kisses me, and I am filled with green light.

1.

It is important that you pour
your sap onto my kale.
Although I wish you had done it
long ago, I will forgive your delay
the moment you begin pouring.
The need for you to pour
your sap onto my kale
has become increasingly urgent—
although not so urgent
that you should drop everything
else that matters to you
in order to do it.
I must remind myself
often that those other
elements comprising
your experience are more
than just obstacles in the way
of you pouring your sap onto my kale,
but are in fact facets of the whole
reason it is so
important that you pour
your sap onto my kale
in the first place.  
Although of course
I prefer to gaze
into your sap’s lush, enigmatic interior,
occasionally I fail to see
beyond its reflective surface
and must instead contend
with the cloudy outline
of my own face,
which makes me uncomfortable.
This should no
longer be an issue
once you’ve poured your sap onto my kale.

2.

I apologize for my tone
when previously discussing your sap.
There was a lot I did not know
about sap back then.
I was recently gently
corrected by the internet.
I was then more
forcefully corrected
by a chorus of frogs,
and then yet again
by a message written
in tiny, delicate, anonymous,
conspiratorial longhand
on a dried out
sycamore leaf
that I just happened to look down at
one evening while walking,
at which point I remembered
I had known this
all along but forgotten: I had thought
your sap was something
that could be poured, but it can’t.
It is something that is yours
and that I am meant
to want but not have.
You, if I am lucky,
are meant to want
to give it to me—although
you cannot—and it’s this wanting
that is the pouring
I was once naïve
enough to believe
was literal.
Nevertheless, I remain hopeful
that you will soon pour
your sap onto my kale.

We agreed
that we would walk
as far as the row
of purple cabbages grew,
then turn back.
But the purple cabbages
heard us saying this,
took it as a challenge,
and began erupting
out of the dirt
spontaneously,
lengthening their row
into the far distance
until we couldn’t
see the ending…

No, they didn’t—
I just wanted them to
because this
was our final walk
because you
had reached
that inevitable
point in one’s life
when one simply must
move to Seattle
and I
was just
a little diplomat
from another dimension,
bound by the terms
of the deal
I had struck
at the gates
of perception

to stay here,
in Western
Massachusetts,
for at least six
thousand more years.