for Megan
You do not know me
but i want to tell you,
always, how you are mine.
Though I may be trapped
between the toxins of the
mountains; the smoke
may it cloud my vision.
I would scream from the roof
of my neighbors home,
or on the top of my mothers,
or on the top of any house
that may never feel
like my own. I suffice.
I dream of cutting out
images of your knuckle
sized socks, a knitted shield
from the sun your small black
thickness covering dents.
You would hold onto it
until you’ve grown in size
when you begin to learn
meals on the granite, your feet
stretching on the maplewood,
the smell of cinnamon you
light to unravel my knotted
spine. Yes, I would still
be married to the man I love
and we would blow bubbles
against the railings of our balcony.
The messages filled with humility,
and how to be fair with the weather,
and to the young woman
who fills your heart to the brim
in a small distant room with two or three
strange beds and books that I have
managed to scrape together loosely
when you grow old and put them
on a white shelf with child
embracing the new curves she bore.
Oh, there is lavender shining off
the bounce, circular and traveling
away from me. I am lonely
in every language but our own
these little notes I wish
to send to you, wherever
you really are, no, not
even the deepest ocean
could writhe in me only
the distance of water is already
in my morning tears and the chills
that never leave my bedside
of the day when I put you
in a boat and sailed you off.
Could there have been
any other way? I beg you,
please come back.