what i wish i had memorized is
the way the air hangs on you
like plums heavy
from my father’s orchard
(boughs bent in obeisance)
awaiting only you
to pluck
or to leave them
to their several fates.

at dawn the sun
peers furtively over the horizon
lest it rust
for not having seen you

what i almost get right is
a smile and then it vanishes
as afterwards
a cigarette perhaps, or better still
to run.
to do is to know
in some aleatory way:
you breathe,
i quake,
even the sea quiets,
humbled, the way i used to
sometimes.