(Dear Della, everything lodged between parentheses eventually comes out of its cave.)

What is there, once the lightning bugs go inside their tiny invisible houses, and leave us in the big dark? Twenty-odd years under one blanket, for you to wake up hungry? I used to float mornings in your nearby absence, paper turning downstairs, chirpy kid noise. Today's dream-drowse: I wake, hand flung on the half-written, smudge-lovely page of a child. I am not a vessel, hold nothing, can't float, refuse to sink. I'm gutted, chilled, shorn of seed. I turn toward the catbird's nonsense. Across town, two people rise in unison, one of them is you.

I wonder if when I get home those petals will still be luminous and melting in the dirt. I'm thinking maybe I need them. I'm saying what would I do without your mouth?

I wonder if when I get home those petals will still be luminous and melting in the dirt. I'm thinking maybe I need them. I'm saying what would I do without your mouth?