An old barn shrill with crickets' trill
(we snuck away to meet like spies)
tomatoes on the windowsill
(the car was hot against my thighs)
clover growing through the floor
(there was little time to spare)
summer here had grown indoors
(your hands were strong, and everywhere).

these things are best written about later,
when you could be anyone, and I can lie
(as heartsick yet composed narrator)
about small things, like *'I really tried.'

The last time I saw
you was in a parking
lot in January. You
were in town for your
father's funeral; my
oranges had tumbled out
of the cart and into
the snow and it was
really very
pretty.

stupid poetry.
stupid hope.

When you are over me,
I'll pluck my poems from your hair
and shake them from your sheets;
I'll take longer than I should.

without you, i am sans serif –
unfinished still, a half-etched glyph.
you are my pitch; i write for this –

each arc and shoulder loops and dips
towards the softest landing of your lips.

now I'm a shipwreck in a sundress,
an aimless, shameless coquette –
a first kiss, a second guess,
a weak and wobbly pirouette.