I used to write about heaven
Because, I knew that I was the type of person
Who would never see it,
Not one that drinks too much
Swears very often
Smokes so heavily, as I do
I used to think there was beauty
In a place that I couldn't see
In a location that isn’t mapped
I thought that in the absence of the tangible verification
Of its own acuality that
It could be anything I wanted it to be.
It changed over the years
First I wrote of it as a couch of clouds
Blue bundles of cotton
With light pink underbellies
That floated free and molded to only me
Then I wrote it as if it was a movie theature
With pictures blown up in front of me,
Mostly home movies that would zoom in on my mothers face
As some Elton John slow song played in the background
Timed perfectly with my mother's movements
And the popcorn was free.
You read all of these ideas of mine
Of what heaven was like
And you agreed and said,
"They are equally bad places to never be."
Now I don't write of heaven often
I sleep next to you much more
Than I drink
Or I smoke
I still swear very often
But the beauty of a place I can't see and could never be
Seems to have lessened to me now
And my idea of heaven are things I can verify
This bed,
Blanket,
Your head underneath a pillow.

Perch on their water perch hung in the clear Bann River
Near the clay bank in alder dapple and waver,

Perch they called ‘grunts’, little flood-slubs, runty and ready,
I saw and I see in the river’s glorified body

That is passable through, but they’re bluntly holding the
pass,
Under the water-roof, over the bottom, adoze

On the current, against it, all muscle and slur
In the finland of perch, the fenland of alder, on air

That is water, on carpets of Bann stream, on hold
In the everything flows and steady go of the world.

I am afraid
the times will change
the world will spin
we'll walk away
you'll grow old.

our house burned down one night
but we saved our books and selves
the embers
left holes in our shirts
and scars on our arms
so we ran to the lake

and screamed.

we basked in the water
till our clothes became anchors
and dawn crawled over the mountains
we stood on the banks
and stared at the ashes
wondering
what would become of us,
this place

I am afraid
I am afraid we will forget this