i drove an hour and thirty minutes
to drop a loaf of banana bread off at
your house and I walked up to the
door talking to myself like a mad-man
it's a  m i r a c l e  you didn't hear me--
saw your truck in the lot but didn't think
much of it, (you were supposed to be at work)

but then you were there--
with those eyes that can get so
wide as if I am the darkest thing
in the room and you need  a l l
the light you can get to take me in,
filling up the doorway with those
b  r  o  a  d  shoulders that sometimes
remind me of the horizon, like the whole
sky has settled across the slopes
of your body and branches
off to the sides, everything
goes on for miles like i'm seeing
something so far off--with that frame of yours
that always seems to pour itself into empty spaces--
you could be standing in the middle
of a whitewashed prairie and the fields
would still gently wrap around your
hands, fold you up in the dirt and
you'd still be the arrowhead i'd find--
and I just mutter jesus christ because you've made
me jump, but still. We haven't seen each other in two
weeks and all I can manage is a jesus christ, you scared me.

you disappear into your room and i'm thinking;
  "do     I     set     this     here     and     go?"  
so I take my time unwrapping the bread, crinkling the
bag between my fingers and stuffing the note beneath  
the sweet tea that I brought because it's been sitting in my fridge waiting for you--but you still haven't come back out so I head for the door, breathing slowly and chewing a hole through my lip.

you're already leaving? You've materialized on the couch with a rifle jammed between your knees, staring out at me past the rod you've got
poised at the muzzle.  I have the door open with the wind blowing in
these soft flakes that have started on a lazy drift, skittering in and collecting around my boots--I have one hand on the door **** and I can hear you running that tiny square of fabric through the chamber, fixated
on the barrel and briefly meeting my eyes.
Waiting for me to say something,
it's a split second--barely any time at all--
I think about how that navy blue shirt looks good on you,
looks like those cloudy ocean waves and you are the sand
riddled sea foam pulsing in and out--

I didn't know if you'd want me to stay, I whisper sheepishly. But I close the door and step back inside.