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.