***
you see, you met me
in a haze, i was
airy and about to
evaporate with
the smallest heat
and so i clung to this belief
like a lassoed mast
if our words remained words
as in, pixels and letters,
as in, unspoken
then that would mean
some thing.
and so i sat in your poetry
which you lent me, so generously
of orchards and gay lovers and dandelions
dangling from trellises of
sweetness,
gratitude
is what he sang of, a Black man
in Indiana, so in love with soil and soot
it made me want to learn
how to pick up a shovel and
lay by it in a grove of weeds that aren't
weeds, when you call them
by name, next
to you.
feeling slow jazz over
that experimental stuff you
had records, mostly
your father's collection and I
thumbed through their titles thinking
of hand me downs
the things, we, hand down
and the silliness, the way
we always say
daddy issues as if
the victim
were to blame.
and when it was my turn
i made Greek coffee
and you sipped it, and read
the grounds like letters
(like the Turks, you said
which i forgave)
the future splayed all
forms unknowable
and pure,
like the empty
subject line
which we filled
a dozen times and then
a hundred more, with the fruits
we grew in winters weeping
and summer daze, until
we had a garden of our own
to roll in, you picking
at each leaf to save the ants
and me missing
their forests for their seeds
between my teeth
and, for a while, i felt
the earth.
now, how i wish
to turn the years back
to when you gave me your number
and i, romantic and foolish,
never texted, preferring
our strange methods until
the day when i saw
the news and needed
to call you and know
you were
fine.
and now i'm poring over
all those signatures we wrote
changing each one
as if in on some joke,
from "cheers"
and "peace & birds"
to "pizza pies and
harmless lies"
and all the other ways
we chose to say
goodbye.
***
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