February

Gratitude

Thanks for staying

with me all day.

Look how far we made it—

not one of us

came out with the: well,

I should get back,

or the: I think it’s time to

get going.

We were out

for hours,

and didn’t you feel how

the streets swelled

to greet us?

And the shade

stuck with us

like a good friend

holding an umbrella

in the rain.

And we stuck it out,

the random hours

between

things we meant to do,

when it would have been

a great excuse

to get away,

but you stayed, didn’t you?

Now we’re here and

I’ll ask you:

do you want to grab a beer

and sit in the park?

At some point,

not long now,

this whole thing is done.

But if we have

just one beer in the park,

we won’t have to talk

as the shade turns dark

and the streets cool

and settle down,

and we won’t have to worry

how to say goodbye.

No, we know that

what we had is over.

Now we can just

bask

in the final moments

as the trees turn out

into the sky,

and all the sounds

around us seem so far away,

before one of us

will say:

First Skin, Breath

Winter now, and on the street

we see nothing

of each other,

suffocating under

scarves and coats

just to

throw them off

when we get home,

join the

unfolded laundry on the bed

I am going through

with rolled up sleeves,

fistfuls of clothes

we can no longer stand to wear

as if

in our undressing

we can strip this burden too,

this boredom,

remember jumping off the dock

at the lake

with our jeans on?

Holding hands

in the plunge,

grasping for your arms

in the dark gold glittering water,

touching your bare skin—

your first skin.

Don’t go yet,

kicking up to air again,

to the scarves and coats wet

and laundry melting

on the bed,

I am taking my first breath

here with you.

Remembering a Room

If there could be

just one thing

to remember of a room,

I claim it is

the light of an afternoon.

Is anything so constant

as the way

a window faces?

Nearly our path

around the sun would change

before the strongest will

of any window,

turned to face the wind

or warmth

or whatsoever weather—

and even then,

what else would we remember

but the light that changed

within the room

that lit so many

afternoons?