(no subject)
1. Heat
I've been trying to write poems for him
because I'm finished or because I'm sorry.
I've been trying to write poems, long ones
that will make me remember or at least
understand. Nothing comes out
and all I can think of are the bottles left
without labels, broken or misplaced things.
I was told once that you can't remember pain,
like you can't remember heat. Maybe the bluest
flame or the smell of hair burning.
You can remember the sound a photo makes
as it curls in fire, but not the heat itself,
the very thing I want so badly to remember.
2. Photos
Not even a year after, I tried to describe him
to a friend who asked and all I could imagine
was a photograph of him that didn't quite capture
anything: his face buried into his sleeve, his hair
gelled and angular, not how I remember.
He looked like a child and I remembered a man.
So I wished I had kept more pictures. All along
I closed my eyes to bring him back, now nothing
came back to focus. I had lost him again.
But this time it made me so happy.
3. Turn
I thought if someone liked me, I must be okay. I thought
if someone was willing to hold me, I must be worth
not letting go. If someone liked my body, it was a good body.
If they liked my conversation, it was worthwhile. Why
do we give ourselves over to love, offer our hearts
as collateral for something we can't afford?
4. Morning Song
How does the morning do this, make you so beautiful?
How many poems have been written for lovers
in the morning light? I watch you sleep. Your arm
above the sheet, your fingers, the little hairs.
Is it this early light from the window, bright and not,
stretching into the room? This light does that.
The curve of ear and neck, the tangle and tuck
and lustrous hair - waking to something that hasn't
woken to you. I could love anyone in this gilding.
But I have loved you without it. For months,
you listened as I spoke of him, though you couldn't
stand to hear it. We stayed up late, talking.
I didn't know what you were thinking, only how
exhausted I was, only how untrusting. And because
it took so long to believe you, to give you that much,
there is already so much invested. I will hold you
until you wake up; I will let you have your dream
and let you be mine.