Because I could be the dirt

that collects at the nape of your neck
on a desert camp site in 2004,
or the unbearable cry of a coyote
from just beyond your tent

Love- but that’s not the whole story,
(3 breakups, a lost silver necklace, unsent letters),
and that naming would diminish the meaning -

which is to say: we are not just the letters
in the locker senior year, but also the months of silence
while I studied English at the local university
and you sold coke in a sad and restless city;

that we are not just the raging that consumes
our straining bodies, but the quiet nights,
together or alone, reading a book, watching a film,

and that things change -
at ten I saved up a year's worth of money
for an expensive doll my parents couldn't afford,
and by the time I reached eleven, I wanted new jeans -

or that one settles into things and wears them out:
days fall loosely when the phone doesn’t ring,
new pennies turn into grimy black pebbles,
new cars - dents and dings.

And then, between the intended and unintended silences,
your face becomes more familiar than my own,
and we realize that endurance completes the story.

Because I could be the paper on which you
wrote the letter that said you were coming home,

but instead I am the girl hovering over you in bed,
seeing the deserts and silences from your eyes now,
a communion finally achieved,
as you look up from your tangled blue sheets
and smile.

Sisyphus



The plant in the grad student lounge
wants for nothing, but never grows.

He chain smokes rapidly and jogs every day.

He studies human need behind iconic statues and silver crosses,
reads Camus and Sartre between articles on religiosity and The Denial of Death.

What he wants is to quantify the intimacy between people and their gods.
What he wants to know is: will the leaves bleed, translucent white, if he breaks them?

His hypothesis: the leaves are plastic.

Because I’m from the Bible belt -
because I’m an atheist.

His smile - the waxy green isn’t convincing.

Look - some people drink, some pray.
I study psychology.

Our conversations always end abruptly and I’m never quite sure what was said.

I don’t believe his doubt proves the existence of that which he doubts,
But when I close my eyes the fake green dances across my lids a blood red.

As we leave the lounge, the plant glimmers, absurd and bright,
in the moonlight between slats in the blind,

and he is still smiling, content with what he doesn’t believe,
while I shiver in an emptiness I can’t quite agree with;

not while stars shine in oddly shaped constellations
and mountains are so high.

What's Not There

Not pain...

Let's not call it pain then,
but rather
a deserted gas station
along a busy road
sign still up, windows dark,
weeds through the cracks
in the pavement.

He left gradually,
even after he was gone
it took months for the print
of his green thumb
to fade from the yard and gardens

A motel-
vacancy sign swinging,
dead leaves
in the drained swimming pool-
and all the unread Bibles,
bindings stiff,
in the empty bedside tables.

The space she left in the world
when she did leave,
was alarming.
Her voice, paper-thin and raspy at the end,
had never sounded so human,
so full of a shared frailty.

And I want to tell you, but can't,
that the dead or gone never disappear,
we carry them around with us.

Negative space
is still
space.