break

We lost this summer

Its sleepy season rigged

Into troughs, narrow dirt beds

Dug By our itching fingers seeking

Grounding like lightning, like storm-

Drains we trickle invisibly toward

The ocean, we are definitely more than one

Direction—but with hope, we are still growing.

I am sitting where we first met

Refusing to budge though my scars

Pucker in the sun and the morning

Crew drowsily goes through shift change.

I have not told a soul

My world is closing

With the breathy murmur of a record

Continuing to spin after the song has ended,

its body still whispering.

You and your puzzle are on my mind,

The drug resistant strain of your sadness,

The scrabbling we do to stay alive

And how we scratch against each other knowing

There’s a keyhole, somewhere

knowing we hold the key.

I do not want to raise the angle

Of your Earth, I do not want

To add my weight to the cross

Of spirit and anger you already carry.

I howl for your wolf body.

I howl for the nights you taught me,

And when that final breeze stirs your cunt,

It fills me with awe and resignation.

Though love is a bridge,

Looking down, I can say,

I am still very much afraid.

You are not of this world, but visit

When you can and always tire

Of this language that translates

Everything but yourself.

We travelled through these seasons

Together, but now summer is coming

Down, and parts of us brown with

Too much light or too little.

The plants you gave me

When you moved away

Are doing fine. I water them

Everyday and wait for

New leaves—they whither—they

Stretch—mostly they stay

The same, looking out my windows

At the wild trees and grass.

We are waiting together

To see what will happen to us

-- the large world moves things in us

that we do not understand.