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.