My pen was a Palace
and it reigned
over princess and peasant
alike.

The court jester fell
at its feet. The Palace
caco-
phonied with laughter.

The K-
night brought delicious
terrors, to which the princess
fell.

The scribe recorded it all. Exactly
as it happened.

Sometimes we peeled back the sky
and pretended that its whispers never caught us.
With wind whipped faces, and chalky cheeks you rested there,
on the side of the road.
Just moments after
daybreak. A face like molten plastic reflected
off the cadence of the skies.

I see you now, wrapped in metal sheaths
traversing the highways of your smile
to the soft whine of a saxophone.

I'll let you lay and wait
a while, in this circle of morning doves,
tuning in to your pressure points.
Switching radio stations.
And tomorrow, maybe,
we'll find where we are.

I decided to let things wash over
like glitter, which doesn't
wash, but scrubs
into paradox
between the ends
of *******
not touching

I'd like to tender again.

I punctuate the days
with water and fill my stomach
with seeds, inchoate
and young.
I don't have to be today
what I desire tomorrow.
Still, I indulge,
beneath its question,
in the period,
before its deluge,
in the holm. Root
into malleability: an island
passing through time.

I'd like to be again.

I'll walk with a dove on my shoulder:
wary of the wings;
weary of the fall;
the beating
that comes before
the flight.

I'd like to be tender again.

I don’t know where I’m from
but I’d like to
call you home
and run through your halls
with the innocence of new fingers
pressing preserve prints
against your skin
and staining the walls.

The way my mother
warned me
I would.

I’ll let you spill
sun across
my swollen eyes
as I sigh the sleep out
of this house that’s still
settling. I’ve never stuck around
long enough to know
how long
that takes.
But while we wait,
I think I’ll settle
in and sip your
coffee, pressed
fresh from France—another place
we don’t belong to
but the sound of it
is sweet enough
that I don’t need
to call it your sugar
to know where
it came from.

And just before the sun goes someplace
we’ve never been
and the cold air creaks in
through your bones,
we’ll open doors
and see the rooms
we built together
in this place that
we didn’t grow up
in, but learned
to call our
home.

I think of you when I make eggs
scrambled, the way that you like them.
I think how you’d tease
And tap the top of the garlic powder
1,2,3,4,5
times. I always thought
It was too much
But you would’ve laughed
If I told you,
because of the stereotype.

So now I make my eggs
scrambled, the way that you liked them.
tapping
1,2,3,4,5
As if your hand were still
telling me when to stop.

I pull apart
pieces of ham,
that I never really liked
in my eggs.
And American kraft cheese,
that sticks
to my fingers
and sticks
To the bottom of the pan
When I’m scrubbing it out
In the sink. Tapping
1,2,3,4,5
filling the kitchen
with the memory of spice
tapped on to fingers
that are not
mine or yours
but an approximation
of ours.

And you’re eating
the eggs that I made.
The way that you like them
And I’m sitting
down next to you. Tapping
1,2,3,4,5
onto your back

and onto the top
of a table
that you’ve never seen,
or smelled or spilled
scrambled eggs on.

And I’m sitting alone,
eating the eggs
that I scrambled,
the way that you like them,
tapping
1,2,3,4,5
on the top
of a table-turning
too clean with time.

You were growing warm in the tongues of spring
and I was soft.
You wove roots in between my fingertips
and planted yourself
on ground I hadn’t known
could bear
fruit.

But summer was hot
and I was dry.
So we struck
stone against stone, breathed
ashes onto skin
and let settle
into fossil.

We fell back in heaps
Of leaves that scattered
my body, no matter how softly
you brushed them off.
The bramble said to the tree
“If in truth”
and I tangled
myself to shield you
from a sun
I knew would cease
to burn.

Then the cold changed your face.
And I was giving you my warmth
to keep you from growing
frigid and icing
over.

When it all went dark,
I reached my fingertips
to trace the grain
of your forehead
and when I opened
my eyes it writhed
like snakes
that were not mine
to charm anymore.

And then the Light
was waking up the face
next to mine. And the birds
were whispering
softer than I could ever be.
You were growing warm.
And I was stone.