I spent an afternoon
flirting with a possibility
in a sea of possibilities
the possibility
that my life might move
horizontally,
the possibility of travel,
the possibility of distance,
the possibility of a waking
destination,
the possibility of you
of you,
here,
a plane, a train, a bus ride
away

dear you:
recently I've been getting my hopes up
and I've been meaning
to take the shuttle there myself
but it's been so long
since I've made that trip
I'm not sure I still bleed
the way I used to
I haven't existed in a while
and maybe now I'm see-through
but if you do
get here, if you do find
yourself here wandering
in the galleries
of this
library
I must tell you
there's a possibility
that you might not find me

there's little
left
of me now
and if you ask the book-runner
for my name
she might give you
my dusty diary

if it's any consolation
you can always find me here

you can always come here

I have heard
of the huntress
whose ritual baths
could be witnessed
only by "men
doomed to die"

but my feet brought
me here from
the meadows of
asphodel

and
you told me
to come out

I waited for you

and  it wasn't
the waiting you do
when you try to sit
still it was
that I held you burrowed
within the bed
of my thoughstream
and loved you
everyday

do you know how
this makes me prone
to love?

this sneaking out
on my own
to catch the twilight?
this sprinkler
water running
over the concrete
beneath bare feet?
this fleeting hour
where I can meet
life with all I am?
this prancing around
the neighborhood
to feel life, to bathe
in the world I
secretly want to inherit
have you always known
to show up here?
that you'd find me
here with my heart
wide open and free?
at twilight...?

i had been asleep for three thousand years
inside the earth
the roots of trees sheltered me
darkness
hid me
nourished me
there wasn't anything more
than this invincibility
in the grave
nothing destroyed
nothing created

but
when the wind
came carelessly
carrying your name
past the branches
of the tree
where I lay sleeping

I crawled out
and staggered to find you

I felt you in the ancient dirt
of the earth upon which
I press my brow
In the quiet rocks that
make up this mountain
in the unproclaimed wood
that holds my fire
in the safe cave around my body

I gather you into a mound
in my hands, wondering where
you are and how to find you

oh stranger of my belonging
form out from the earth
be a friend I can hold

every poem i've ever
caught has been a daydream
every woman i've ever loved
has been a daydream
and
i've lost
trust
in my eyes
and in my heart, but i
still see
with my feet
this world
i meet
at my feet, this earth
i wake up to, this home
i return to
i see
with every beating
courage of my feet