like the stream

begin a conversation with me on the rooftop because here they forgot to retrofit the ground with the heavy cement that, below, fills our shoes poured in like animal into my jar jam glass cups of red wine as we chop bella mushrooms sips of beer as we wait for the water to boil letting dumplings sink only to be risen by bubbles

i forgot the salt, the ledge of rooftop and the breeze but i remember the coziness of coldness – what if warmth is just a distraction from the cold and not any sensation by itself? up here our mortality is hung out to dry like the underwear on the clothesline across from us and the clarity is honeycrisp like notes of cider

from napa, we found favor with the favas before tearing them down for the tomatoes you seeded them too close and now i'm weeding my fingers stained with red as blood as beets spring's here now, but summer's here now-er and didn't i tell you that i forgot the salt? in my nature i forget seasons like seasoning and maybe that's why i love this perpetual fall

maybe that's why i keep coming back

when i open my heart i leave it wide like a window that i'm too tired to close, like your apartment on an april night a conduit for carrying uphill conversations to buena vista an echo chamber for the crackle of the muni vroom the mosquitos that tell me forgotten secrets before kissing my cheeks and leaving me hickeys

i save my fastest sprints for last minute sunsets as if corona heights park could be no higher peak listen to how the rustling of leaves and pebbles howl louder than anything i've ever heard and have you heard how our favorite star says goodnight?

i want to marry a boy with freckles whose last name is Fairweather so that he will teach me to tie knots with our fingers to brave the storms that tide us

i want to chart the wrinkled lines of his eyes when he smiles or frowns so that he will teach me to read the map that he’s charted turning expanses of skin into oceans to be trekked

i want to navigate the rolling waves of his off-key melodies so that he will teach me about hooks and chords about fish caught and fish let go