I crafted a painting to
hang on that wall of yours

Someday you'll take it down
and think of me

They smoke, somber around us
    cooking phrases in our daily newspaper

dancers in their own right

     While I'm just trying to figure out how to
             breathe you in long enough that
                   I can float forever when you're gone

You'll take to the grave of their question
What did I win?

(do not follow your heart)

do not follow the resolved feeling, the
         benefit of the doubt a hundred times over and
                        bent over backwards and hollow

do not forget numbers, multiples of being alone
         prime and so easily covered with the foam that
                 washes away, worthless
    
                  do not follow.
                  do not forget.

take these foundations you insist upon dispersing like
ashen arms, gritty sand wiped into an eye by mistake

        take these.

                take these compounded days and
                take these dug out pits of stomach and
                take these falls and

    get the hell out.

where musical notes spill over into fine
tequila, crowded dancing, conversation

they remember the night.

every raincloud a challenge, a
puddly smile

Magnolia leaves, the
thick wax coating

(this was always meant to be sweeping, the kind that
rips apart continents, scrounges
mountains from crumbs)

always meant to borrow your breath, stolen away like
fingerprints on eager skin and then brought back,
wondering where hearts fell in, the
luster of warmth

meant to learn the
magnetism from colors and
preserve proximity, stretch
away solitude

(and I have found none of this to be
anything short of a miracle)