for so long

We inserted words
into spaces in the rain


Yr feet trudging home through puddles and I am glad. I don't know what you are thinking.

I will cough this out of me, cough my lungs hoarse and dry, pour more water down my dusty throat and pine for morning air.

Hocus pocus. Focus harder. Down behind the ink somewhere are wedged my indecisions, insomnias, incantations. I don't want to know better than to want you back. But I do. (Want you, and know.)

My itchy hips pitch fits. These woozy, snot-nosed dreams get less strange all the time. I sleep, and dream of bicycles and packages and record stores and vegetables. I dream about love like compost, messy and hot and beautiful. I dream of firm yellow squash and translucent onions browning in oil. And you, with yr pinned eyes, stumbling through all of my nightmares. I sleep so heavily with someone else near, comforting in the dark. I fall asleep so easily alone now, too.

What a way to start a fire!