it makes the break soft, uneven. 
even if I could, i wouldn't—
what?
Sink firmly in until I could speak for you?
Say lovely things 
about what it was like?

Even then I would **** it.
Or at least watch it die; 
dispatch a small flock of birds
to make it seem
cherished.

My love was like a playful kitten,
curious and quickly smitten –
maraud the house to see what's in it,
intrigued by all the things forbidden.

Your love was like a lazy hound,
content to dig the same old ground –  
or better yet, to go lay down;
a nuisance, having me around.

tactic: write very
small so you have
to lean closer.

There's always one who knows
best, one who makes her best
guess, always one who just left, one
who wore her best dress; one you'll never
see again, and one you will. Amen.

We still think
we're ripe figs, saplings
green and sweet 'neath supple
bark, hearts still sticky,
fruit still ****.

I saw a photo
of a plain little farmhouse;
I imagined us
kissing in the bright kitchen
and lilacs in jelly jars.

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.

and invited the moon into the
room – a stranger, she stole
through the night to our chambers,
a bevy of damsels to carry her candles.
She lit up our eyes; she lit up our skin
like our skin was the sky.

I pretend that your poems and 
my poems go
slumming in disguise;
carrying on in dark doorways
of riverfront bars—
tipsy, telling secrets,
spilling out into the sweet-smelling
night,
libertines 
more in love 
than they were before.

Until now, my best work yet: a boat, a love, the Leonids.
Quite beautiful as heartbreaks go, a near miss on a midnight
lake, with wishes dropping left and right. I laughed at that,
said take me back, and until then, I thought I meant
to shore. Nice story; camera fixed on Indian Point, boat exits
left 'neath fireworks, sponsored by the Galaxy, brought to you
by Tunnelvision. Cue piano, pretentious fin, but then
you – a star: hotter than those meteors, colder than those
miles of lake. I wrote you in, rough draft, known as
the man who loved this woman best, but take your bow;
you've been recast: the man who loved this woman last.