Early in May I first heard the words:
Something is wrong with Grandpa’s heart,
They’ll just go in and fix this small piece
It won’t take long; he’ll be healed fast
It’s no big deal, he’s in no real pain
All said over the phone—I was gone.

No way to know only three months and he’d be gone,
At first everything said was just simply words;
Thoughts of possibilities caused us no real pain.
He’d be just fine; aside from that valve he had a good heart.
Seemed to us on this world he was stuck fast,
But so many problems caused by that one small piece…

Slowly we realized, came together piece by piece,
From his bedside someone was never gone
Sometimes skipping lunch, dinner, or breakfast
Always trusting in those doctors’ words,
But the problem was no longer just with his heart,
The complications now causing much more pain.

Watching everything through a foggy window pane
Why was this disturbing our family’s peace?
How dare that infection attack our family’s heart?
Making us go where we never would have gone,
Previously only unspoken words
Spoken fast.

Everything happened so terribly fast.
From hardy and hale to incredible pain,
And eventually lost even were words.
Finally feeling as if I might lose a piece
Of myself; all that comforting doubt gone,
The shattering beginning to spiderweb across my heart.

Better to let go than allow an explosion in his heart;
Choose slow poison over demise excruciatingly fast.
Then before I realize, forever he is gone.
And this is only the barest beginning of the pain;
Jealous, no one here can find the same peace;
In the family plot, my song the final words.

Months later still finding that pain,
Doomed to always be missing a piece,
To forever be hearing the missing words…

squeeze you to read you,
the pores that pour out hidden punctuation
that defines and makes and creates pauses for
you to look beautiful in.

there are two velux windows somewhere
in the world that look out onto chimney pots
and rooftops and birds next to each other looking
out over a flight plan that they'll fly together.

in pub seats we'll slide into and across,
placing coats on empty chairs so not to be stolen
and you pause. And out comes a list from behind a breath and a
colon: everything you wish to achieve in a year.

You may look for me on Oxford Street
At dawn or dusk or night.
Or downtown where the down-and-outs meet
To drink and sleep and fight.
You may catch my shadow lurking on the curb
In the rainy middle-class suburbs.
(You’ll be chewing on the cud and on the curd,)
And they’ll all think you quite absurd,
And pass you by without a word
Without a care.
You won’t find me.
No, I’m not there.

You might get a glimpse at sundown
Of me and The Sundance Kid,
Riding onto Cape Town,
Or sliding through Madrid,
Or stealing through the byways of Turin –
Winking at the bottom of your glass of bitter gin,
Breathing through your window, on your skin,
Guessing what I think, just like a twin
But I swear,
You won’t find me,
No, I’m not there.

Chase my name to the horizon
Or the shores of Timbuktu;
Just be sure to keep your eyes on
Those two feet in-front of you.
I’ll be biting at your heels,
The stinging citrus scent of the fruit you peel,
The whirling hub of your bicycle wheel,
The hassock you fall upon when you come to kneel
In prayer.
But you won’t find me,
No, I’m not there.

Do not think that I will answer
When you ask or shout or call.
The figure of the folk dancer
Will not be me at all.
I’ll be the one that you’re not looking at,
Sitting in the place where you just sat,
Wiping from my face what you have spat,
Sleeping in every dark empty pocket of every new coat that
You wear.
Oh, you won’t find me,
I’m not there.

In every crowd and every gathering
You will turn around to see
That where I am not standing
Is not where you want to be.
Somewhere between you waking and your sleep
I swim the deepest secrets that you keep,
Silently catching the tears you weep,
In the kitchen cooking the food you eat
Minding what you sow you reap!
I am one step ahead of a sentient sweet
And fair.
But you will not find me.
I am not there.

I thought of people like planets,

love, a star.

romance occurring in orbit.

while you thought of love like a galaxy merger,

colliding heavily into one,

losing memory of any previous orbit.

me; a rogue planet,

ejected and orbiting

the galaxy.

never gravitationally bound to any star.