you envied the stars

Nothing gold can stay. — Robert Frost

I once was a child am a child am someone's child             not my mother's not my father's the boss       gave us special treatment treatment for something                   special a lollipop or a sticker glitter from the

toy box the better we did the better the plastic prize made             in China one year everyone got a spinning top       one year everyone got a tap on their shoulders                   one year everyone was fired everyone

fired but me one year we all lost our words one year             my father lost his words to a stroke       a stroke of bad luck stuck his words                   used to be so worldly his words fired

him let him go without notice can they do that             can she do that yes she can in this land she can       once we sang songs around a piano this land is your land                   this land is my land in this land someone always

I could be someone who twists the truth. I knew what I was asking

when I said Stay here with me. The walls waved in your image, a storm

on the horizon, growing. Hurricanes all have their own names & we earned ours, secret

triumphs locked away in other apartments, other cities. It wasn't having a house to tend that kept us

together. We weren't supposed to stay anywhere long. We paint different walls the same

stark white, but they dim & darken to a dingy beige as we stand waiting

to see what skyline comes next. Who doesn't wake & want

to be somewhere different? Different birds at the door. I still want your hands

on my hips. On my collarbones, arcing toward you. A space we're meant to

dust & darken. To wake in a different city, longing for home. Where home is the curve of our hands

on the doorknobs. Where we know ourselves by thunder & the smell of thick

              sprawled over grass

                                                               made an endless planet

by nightfall. Our faces

                                             lifted to the season’s end

              were a cloister of moons.  

                                                               I asked for a legend

about what glows

              so we could fill our bellies

                                             with something death

                                                               hasn’t yet touched.

             To be moved

                                             by what’s untouchable

              means we are conduits for more

than flesh, fallibility.

              To ready ourselves

                                                         for gentleness, then,

                                             is to make a landscape

                                                               of desire, translate farewell

             into the sum of all distances

measured by light.

                                             Nothing’s as visceral

             as the hard-won kiss

                                                               where we press our lips

to ghosts & inhale

             until we are vessels for life

                                                             still unlived.

             Genealogy creates room.

I only have my shadow

                        to bear—& even that is theory

                                                               in another throat.

We are both endangered

                                             species, you & I,

             but the weight

of your heart’s chambers

                                             upon my breast

                                                               was a dream

             no prayer could give us.

If there’s anything

                                         that still surprises me

             it’s the fact joy too has weight.

                                                               That at the end of all hurts

there lies another to climb out of

i love you dad, i say to the cat. i love you dad, i say to the sky. i love you dad, i say to the mirror.

it rains, & my mom's plants open their mouths. my dad stays on the couch. maybe the couch opened

its mouth & started eating my dad. i love you dad, i say to the couch, its tongue working my dad like a puppet.

i hear the rain fall & think the city is drinking. or making itself clean. i am here with my dad & the TV & the TV drones

on & on, so i'm not sure i hear it-- my dad grunting and nodding, not the mushy stuff i was expecting,

neither of us cry, no hug or kiss. a grunt & a nod.  i love* you dad, i say to my dad.  we sit together

and watch TV.  outside it rains. my dad turns the volume up. the city is drunk. the city is singing badly in the shower.

i killed a plant once because i gave it too much water. lord, i worry that love is violence.  my dad is silent

& our relationship is not new or clean. i killed a plant once because i didn't give it enough water. my dad & i watch TV

on a rainy day. we rinse our mouths with this water.