you
would have a winter birthday,, yes
for all the charcoal lumps in your eyes revelled in something as clean and innocent as snow, and how could so much snow have been shoveled into dirty piles on streetsides before we made it here,, your hair all electrical tape and loose wires
in the single smear of rubber sound i realized i have no place for these technologies // i have a fondness for you like an old cereal i haven't eaten since childhood,, the way you split your arms apart in the morning when you stir, all the things you never knew i noticed - we grow to hate the feeling of wet popsicle sticks on our tongues, the way our stomachs rub together is no longer a commodity to you is it but i remember when we had it good i remember when the laughter was free and the dawn never quite came in the window because we were at ground level and on lazy summer mornings we would sleep all day long there is a responsibility to entertaining memories and it is not safe to continue unless you have full control of what was and what is and how to not stir the two because no matter how well you salt your glass
that sip is potent and will bowl you down // i am too tired now for excuses ,, eveything has become a field rip of rest stop food and sleeping on assorted couches here are all the things i think are important that i can no longer carry with me, one, my skirts and dresses, two, my scarf collection, three, you,
on the way home we cut through the park
the last cries of basketball children were settling to rest on the cooling pavement in a light airy blanket of defiance and sweat
under the night streetlamps we trailed our shopping bags// your skin and hair and shirt all pushed together in the citronella glow of latenight

i remember your breathing to be a cello, or the way we move against each other in sleep as a sad piano solo

i wanted to collect the sidewalk cracks you stepped over and build crooked junglegyms for us// we met on old peeling park benches and drenched our sandals in dew
moths flutter around the corners of the schoolbuildings and we ride the go-round
silent but the wind
your face focused above the whir beyond your ears
happy
charcoal-eyed children
we are young and know nothing
p ..atien .t.
oh, you, sleeping,, we hit pillows together, waiting, two, for the earlymorning dumptrucks' whirring clank below your window

i like to feel your lips on my cheek when i'm waking up

08/11/2004

Author's Note: don't i wish you'd come home,

Posted on 08/12/2004
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