Vaguely
1.
It must've been planned, my mixing
you in with the marginalia. We always know the places
we'll return (leaves pressed into lace-hems
between pages 36 and 50, frail but unfading).
2.
Childhood bedrooms and initials scraped
into new-fallen acorns. The local menagerie of weeds
breathe their pollen and seed into your hair
(for safe-keeping) (the dandelion, vigilant,
waits for you everywhere).
3.
I listen to your childhood records and try
to imagine you learning every lyric, burying
your toes beneath blankets.
4.
The way the strap of your sandal
fastens around your ankle.
5.
[every wrinkled page is only more proof --
you were never close enough
to your books to write in them]
6.
How, every time, I think there is nothing left
to say. how, every time, I am wrong.
7.
I will go back
for this, one reason -- I miss
the swings in the park.
How they did not suffer
our weight, but sang
the full extension of our legs
and arms.
8.
I will go back for just
one more thing. For the nameless
yellow fists (little, decorative
citrus). For not knowing
it by name or by sight but still
undoing its peel with one,
chewed fingernail. For not knowing
its name and tasting it anyway.
For the way its pithy flesh turned
bitter my lips and hands.
9.
It waits all night to rain just
so I can remember
how you used to smell before sleep, how
the day made your hair sweet
and sour as grass
rotting
in clumps on the yard (having been cut
after three days' rain, its exhalations
wet as it wilts).
10.
And, okay (I wouldn't mind
visiting the killdeer, those crazy
rock-dwellers, pinning their nests
between ditch-stones).
It must've been planned, my mixing
you in with the marginalia. We always know the places
we'll return (leaves pressed into lace-hems
between pages 36 and 50, frail but unfading).
2.
Childhood bedrooms and initials scraped
into new-fallen acorns. The local menagerie of weeds
breathe their pollen and seed into your hair
(for safe-keeping) (the dandelion, vigilant,
waits for you everywhere).
3.
I listen to your childhood records and try
to imagine you learning every lyric, burying
your toes beneath blankets.
4.
The way the strap of your sandal
fastens around your ankle.
5.
[every wrinkled page is only more proof --
you were never close enough
to your books to write in them]
6.
How, every time, I think there is nothing left
to say. how, every time, I am wrong.
7.
I will go back
for this, one reason -- I miss
the swings in the park.
How they did not suffer
our weight, but sang
the full extension of our legs
and arms.
8.
I will go back for just
one more thing. For the nameless
yellow fists (little, decorative
citrus). For not knowing
it by name or by sight but still
undoing its peel with one,
chewed fingernail. For not knowing
its name and tasting it anyway.
For the way its pithy flesh turned
bitter my lips and hands.
9.
It waits all night to rain just
so I can remember
how you used to smell before sleep, how
the day made your hair sweet
and sour as grass
rotting
in clumps on the yard (having been cut
after three days' rain, its exhalations
wet as it wilts).
10.
And, okay (I wouldn't mind
visiting the killdeer, those crazy
rock-dwellers, pinning their nests
between ditch-stones).