Her love is like a Minnesota river,
Still only on the surface, and only in the winter

My love is like a maple on the shore
That waits to be fed by your waters and constantly wants more

I don't need to tell you where or know whee you go,
You're gonna do what you do and be beautiful so,
Don't let me stop you,
Just flow river, flow

I know it's impossible to keep you dammed,
Your waters will swell to keep moving and I'll lose your hand

See you're made of water and slippery after all
But you're always there on the landing and soft when I fall

I wanna grow into your deltas, shade your shores, give you love,
My leaves fall in your waters, you surround and give the best hugs

I could never stop you, and I won't try any more,
I'm just a maple in the autumn waiting to wade into your shore

I'd kid myself thinking you're not a different river every day,
But at least I always get a new you before I have to let you flow away

But in a tiny little puddle in my roots you'll be remembered for a while
I know that I'm not as tall as I want yet, and you're not nearly the Nile

But still you'll flow to different places and I'll stay here the same
I'll always see you shining in the current and hope to feel you in the rain

Her love is like a Minnesota river
Still only on the surface, and only in the winter

My love is like a maple on the shore
That waits to be fed by your waters and constantly wants more

I don't need to tell you where or know where you go,
You're gonna do what you do and be beautiful so,
Don't let me stop you,
Just flow river, flow

So I've been a little hermit lately. Kind of a homebody. Sociophobic.
I have been missing you so much.
I remember we used to be attached at the hip, the soul. Our faces on underpasses.
We had all we could do. It was only you.

Now you act almost like we're different. You act like we just passed each other by.

My acquaintance.
I remember how you smell. Exactly how you smell.
I can never look at a person who shares your name and think of them
"The Usual Way,"
How I Am Supposed To Look At Them.
How I Am Supposed To Look At You.

You don't understand my anguish anymore, do you?
I guess not, but I forgive you. Your life is big, too.
But avoiding the truth won't make it untrue.
We may be young but we've both lost our youth.
This trend is not old, this love is not new.

I miss you. I hate to repeat myself, but...
I really do.

Do you still think of me, too?
I hope so.

Because these signals will never go out.
Those Everlasting moments
Memorized always.

Another dinner tainted
by moistly cooing feta
and cracking of crutons
in his mouth.

A wrinkle plunges
his forehead into lines
mimicking the knives
meticulously hidden above door frames.

He picks the scab
caught in his leg hair
and it dangles-trapped
as he gets to the screaming tea.

Birds dart out the window
and freeze in the sky
in the picture of Samford Hall
hanging above the white-washed mantle.

Cookie cake icing
reads, “Happy 68 Pops”
and we sing to fogged glasses
as his face quivers.

Half empty glasses
are on the table
in the living room.
Materialistic proof
that I never finish
what I start.

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

My past is this landscape of places that I’ve only ever seen in documentaries;
It can’t exist but somehow it must.
Your eyes are these temples built high that have fallen into sandy desecration;
Though once worshiped, they have not stood the test of time.
I was once able to say you were my world.
I miss being so simple and wrong.
It was easier.
Back then.

too often do I
remove myself from the
equation to simplify the
problem for people
you get rid of
one variable
and the rest
works out
i guess