If we could be like squirrels on a wire
who exchange brief pleasantries and then
leap from their graces without dwelling much on where the other has gone or why they have left

If there were no should-we or would-we's
churning in our heads
thick and messy like butter

If I could inhale you over and over
your sweat sweet like music
If I wouldn’t miss it a day

If I left and it was not cruel
If it did not break you
If a few good years of trouble
came and went but interrupted nothing
like flickers of a lamp in a sunny room

If then I could return to you
If all the people and places and things
that we did and went and broke
could be swept up into tidy little boxes
and stay hidden from ourselves forever

They would
I would
If we could.