I joke about
being dead,

and it's funny
because it's true

You said you had
some choice words
for me, even though

I said we wouldn't
speak again.

You asked what if
you gave up on your
hopes and dreams
and aspirations or

What if I gave
up mine or what
if we could compromise?

But I've let you
go already. We cycled
too many times:

I needed all of your
love, and you only
wanted some of mine.

"Still... I wonder," you said.
But for me days and nights of
wondering had long been dead

I want you to be happy,
but it's not with me.

As time goes by,
I find myself content
with the leftover love for you:

It doesn't mind at all
that I'm happy with another

When I think of us
now, it reminds me of my
old religion:

a devout Catholic Christian.

My hands pressed together
--begging--
with my knees on the floor

for attention.

The light of your glory
hid under a bevy of bushels
--where it's most protected--

at a safe and
comfortable distance;

as the giving of a glow
diminishes its flame,
and the hunger pains for fire
enough to ***** it away.

When I think of us
now, I think of my
new religion:

I sit with palms
open and ask softly:
to be kind and beside me.

I smolder in embers
within a phoenix pyre;

it keeps me warm
and fed and requires
very little:

some feathers, some ash,
my happiness

I can see myself
falling for you,

and in that voyeuristic  
pleasure, I feel it-- falling
for you--

and I must look away

like an embarrassing
scene on TV or a
train wreck,

but I can't look away

I saw him
for the last time
I'll see him
in awhile.

He's late by a day
and three hours and
on his phone reading
sports articles in french

with me tucked up
under his arm like
a football, cookies

in the oven for
his long drive.

He kisses me more
than usual and says
he'll miss me and that
we'll be fine, just fine
and I believe him.

He leaves, but
forgets his treats
and returns,

then turns and
leaves again.

Can a poem crunch
like a carrot in toddlers
teeth, chewed up quickly?

A pair of young palms: one
bends to kiss the other
in the passengers seat.

A young she at the time
leans like a tree: only in
the extremities, while

palm fronds flick and flutter
shirt hems and tongue tips,

Wait, stop--

Words in haste laid
to wait against the force
of a singular intent to
bend a tree trunk.

Words are less
convincing than
demonstration,

are ineffective against
strength and conviction