I am thankful to this moment,
for you are not here.
You are not
weaving your fingers through mine
nor are you
kissing the center of my forehead.
And yet I am thankful,
for each moment you are not here
implies a moment in which you are.

If I had had a pocket for every time
you came in the form of a misty leaf,
(sticking to the underside of my

misbelief, drawing attention to
every old logical fallacy that
was, blissfully, missed)

I still wouldn’t have enough to hold
the amount of change we’ve set in motion,
the density of our meaning, nor the

emotions you inflict on me,
from your place on that mountain.
(as if through sorcery);

And I can’t help but imagine you
as some metaphoric fountain,
forever spouting pockets—

The seeds of your actions sprouting
in neat rows of goodwill, and decisive
Indecision, your face half hidden

in some fey magic of mythologized memory
your hair ridden with peaceful fire
and emptiness, your lips set in a

quiet compassion, ashen from
the song of my phoenix lyre,
content in uncontentedness,

knowing that bliss is also not-bliss,
and that every moment spent apart
is a melody of separation: this—

the crafting of some divergent art,
spooky action at a distance, these shadow
figments mere resistance to our own

true nature: the heart’s desire, sown
in every field, every stable, this very
word, and all the fables that persistently

insist that perhaps there’s one more thing
I’ve missed. So I’ll look once more (through
that gateless gate, perceptions door) at your

sleeping face, the oceans floor, clouds weeping,
that distant shore of sandy grace:
outside time, inside space.

You drew, quite adeptly I might add,
a comparison between me,
(or your thoughts of me)
and the billowous smoke drifting,
softly flowing,
from the flame charred nostrils
of some old dragon.

I would, if you’d allow such a poetic
intrusion, add some minor details
(As I enjoy the image immensely).
The first is that the dragon be a figment,
a glimpse of mountainous countryside
conspiring to be, from one angle,

A dragon of momentous proportions,
its nostrils the dual chimney of some familiar
house, its occupants keeping some stoic
dream alive, stomachs slightly less full of
asceticism, feet full of soles. The dragon’s teeth
an old picket fence, a relic to an outdated

conception of “living” and perhaps that
scaly plaque at the center of its forehead
is not armor, as I would have insisted
in those years prior to our meeting,
but is rather a patch of dense forest
not yet explored  by tiny pittering feet,
not yet absorbed by the eyes of children.

We were twenty minutes outside
Asheville when we slipped, carelessly
From the edge of the earth
Into an oil painting.

We were, still are really, perpetually
Twenty minutes away when the traffic
would clog, and Michael would blow
Into a tissue; trying to clear both.

Every curve would birth another stretch
Of road, another ridge of mountains, their
Sight not unlike the unlikely vantage of seeing
your shoulders for the first time in film.

Then we’d break again, sure that this was
Some sort of ******* afterlife, full of minor
Inconveniences and signs warning that
‘Bridge ices before road,’
Mocking us in our perpetual summer.

The best of my poetry wasn't written down,
Rather, was spoken to empty rooms,
The stinging silence pregnant,
Each syllable a fleshy womb
Creating, and recreating, your
Image in my mind.

Oh, how the stars in their firmament love to creak.
Sounding off, in order, small to large.
A meek tinkering turned, slow, toward cacophony.
Mice nibbled wires finding, in accident,
The secrets of life and electricity.

Your words held all the weight,
but not the wetness,
of a mid-day sunshower.  

My sandaled feet not spared
the puddle, nor my greasy hair
the extra embarrassment.

And outside the pavement babbles with
impromptu brooks: Words rambled on,
unaware of that mossy sewer

At the heart of the city.