The sun, faraway, pools gold I can touch
onto your hair. All I can see
at this distance from you
is the infinite lighted space between thin threads.
I lay through you, limbs wrapped
by the root of our skins.

I lived on North Street. I would try
to outrun my dog in our small backyard.
I hung drawings on a clothesline in the morning,
and stared into an eclipse in the afternoon.

You lived on many streets. They would smoke
in the summer. When your mother dressed you,
you laughed from the tickle of grass
imagined under your feet. You would say
to yourself, again and again, the nickname
your father gave you, so you’d never forget.

Your eyes under me look up.
Can two people cross and stay, I ask myself.
Their brown—translucent, wavering
in the sunlight, I see, told all.
To hold you as my belief
was a fragile possibility.