Dear H-----,

Everything then
is now, too,

memory
is plural.

In law school
I mentored you

& let you ******
me after I broke

up with the art
deco girl who

kept turning the
blade in my side as

if it were a key.  
It was a scandal -

I felt my name
crawling lip to lip,

caught library looks,
but didn't care.

Your sister taught me
the moon game

at your kitchen table
& then spread my blood

with her song.
Do you remember it?

When I drank
my acetylene pain,

you were so quick
to forgive. It left

an impression.
We came home late,

laughing so hard
we were *******,  

with the moon
tangled in the ivy.

But I was still hanging
from the blade of

the art deco girl,
& it wasn't fair to you,

dying like that.
And then when

my grandmother
died, I needed you

but it was too much
& you fled. It was the end.

You moved, and married.
I let the art deco girl

saw me apart
a few more times.

But I never forgot
how alive we were,

or the strange sound
of the lullaby I wrote you.