In June I learned the quieter streets
to your apartment. Over alleys
and the fusion of dim moons
our slide was sideways. You followed me
down Higgins in long strides.
In the streetlight your verbs
looked muscular, your eyes bruised.
Your lips and the sound of your spine
by the river seemed big. Between
my white socks and polka-dots, I saw
the strange field between words and things
where people come together.
Because I allowed myself to wander
sidewalks and daydreams I thought
I loved this world or myself.
I wrote fairy tales. For years
I'd been using pencils
so I'd be forced to not erase.
I started this poem on a night I don't understand
changed. We have to go elsewhere.
I can't arrange the days, stones, things that were said.
Summer was warm so my shape depended.
Against the things you said I kept setting wrong.
I felt small. Hoarded needles. Didn't want dinner.
Just the same, I eat.
My mouth loves its own circular grace,
shedding the frustration of things that were whole.
To an old friend from Big Sky Village
Town is not the same.
There are yellowbells and sunlight and people I can't,
though they live in town, call townspeople.
Nothing needs scouring so rushes are left alone
and the brewery only does business with travelers.
These people look like boiled eggs perfect in their cups,
ski lifts which are bright against the hot sky like clean dishes.
I couldn't find a bar.
Your shadow in the hotel looked like Fred Astaire.
I looked away.
Because I needed a poem I imagined
driving through with a dying aunt but all our meals tasted like water too cold for the flume
and in a town that's always afternoon it's hard to admit you're afraid of being alone in the ground.
And it isn't the same. Next to deglassia
I couldn't remember loving words,
looked at the page and this was the next one, wide
because there were no margins
because I stopped imagining them.
For no good reason
you are crouching in the needles.
I didn't want Judy to die but I hoped those towns I walked with you would.
Or I would. And then write others.
It's been years in all places and I've been good near and far myself,
made gentle poems and neighbors, dug biscuit root
and just a moment ago I was nothing on a clean steel bridge,
sun extinguished a match lit in the larches far below
but now I must be remembering everything wrong.
There are yellowbells and sunlight and people I can't,
though they live in town, call townspeople.
Nothing needs scouring so rushes are left alone
and the brewery only does business with travelers.
These people look like boiled eggs perfect in their cups,
ski lifts which are bright against the hot sky like clean dishes.
I couldn't find a bar.
Your shadow in the hotel looked like Fred Astaire.
I looked away.
Because I needed a poem I imagined
driving through with a dying aunt but all our meals tasted like water too cold for the flume
and in a town that's always afternoon it's hard to admit you're afraid of being alone in the ground.
And it isn't the same. Next to deglassia
I couldn't remember loving words,
looked at the page and this was the next one, wide
because there were no margins
because I stopped imagining them.
For no good reason
you are crouching in the needles.
I didn't want Judy to die but I hoped those towns I walked with you would.
Or I would. And then write others.
It's been years in all places and I've been good near and far myself,
made gentle poems and neighbors, dug biscuit root
and just a moment ago I was nothing on a clean steel bridge,
sun extinguished a match lit in the larches far below
but now I must be remembering everything wrong.
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