I wanna stop wondering what if '
I wanna start knowing what is'


-second chance

If you asked me before,
I'd swear that love was
not for me
that a feeling
so soft did
not exist within
me
and that holding a gaze
was only for show

I've read a lot of books now,
and I've had a lot of
lovers-
and I've asked fortune
tellers for my
feelings I don't know,
sleeping so stilly within me

-would not wake
to the slightest or the sharpest
touch of a hand, and I've had
both-

I've had
10,000 miles and
too much coffee.
Pursuing and
withdrawing.

And after all this time
in the self's purgatory
I find you
and you dig into
my skin and pull
the tenderness out
of me like picking flowers
from the quietest
of meadows

I've seen a lot of things
and dreamed a lot of dreams
and finally after seeking,
you pluck and uncover me.

carnal scattering of
root and banished leaf,

merely human, the day
spreads maple leaves
like dark gusts of wind.

the thunder of
a small bird.

a poem grows shadows
and moonscapes,

the moon,
withered sapphires,
undone,
her open windows
a thread of bright
light.