so I thought I might tell you
that my left currently bears
a disappearing crescent of ouch
and three diamonds

or that my right
tends to drift
to the back of my neck
when I'm trying to remember

or that they both stop and start
over these letters
right now,

not sure what to say.

If I wrote you the shortest poem,
a word, or less
that said as much as any
poem, or more;

worked through this night, and the next;
by sunlight,  lamp light
head bent over every word I've ever written
and all the words I haven't learned;

if sometimes I cried, and thought I'd never stop,
and sometimes I found a word
that was not the right word
but it was a good word,
a perfectly sweet word
so I held it to my chest for a while;
curled up in bed with it,
stood there, waving
long after it was gone;

if I wrote you the shortest poem
and rode my bike to your house
because I wanted to give it to you
while it was still warm,

would your door be open?
Would you smile for days?

How sick I was (and lost)
when brought to suffering
by the smell of coconut
on someone else's
freckled skin.

The crickets abandoned the yard
not long after you.
The evenings are too quiet now—

no big, dumb you exploring every 
bush and branch,
snapping and snuffling
through the thicket,
coming home 
with dirt on your nose
and covered in burrs,

goofy faced.

Just grass
and a sleeping garden.

The squirrels fear nothing.

Though winter stripped the orchard boughs,
I still think of harvest kisses.
I loved you then and maybe now;
my first bite, my red delicious.

My errant fingers
create two new words;

gentlenab
I find strangely ******,

wrotten
I find strangely appropriate.