I saw you from the time
you were a sapling
gasping for carbon dioxide,

you didn't deserve it
but you were given beyond
what your branches
could carry

yet I will love you
until all your leaves fall
and your roots turn to ash.

I like the color of your sweater and the stripes on your sleeves and I especially like how the ends fray and the gray looks more like milk than it does a rainy day sky or a weatherbeaten road.

2. The reason I stepped back was not because you smelled funny, or that I was shocked to find you there, but because the air condition was hitting me right on the shoulders and I left my red sweater at home.

3. Okay, so maybe I was a bit shocked at finding you there; it’s just that you’re the first one who’s ever bothered lingering at the poetry section besides me, and I’m not good with surprises; in fact, I hate surprises.

4. But you’re a good kind of surprise.

5. I like your glasses. I used to have a pair just like them before someone removed them and told me that I should learn to see differently. Things have been kind of unclear since then, but I’m learning how to hold onto the side rails.

6. I hope you’ll let me remove yours, too.

7. Your hair looks like a bird’s nest. I wonder if you’re hiding life or pieces of green bottle in there. That’s a lovely shade of brown, by the way. I’ve never seen chocolate curls before.

8. Do you think that if a pine wants to, it will grow until its branches poke holes in the sky for stars and pinecones to fall out so we can catch them in our palms and compare who got the most scratches and who caught the most stardust?

9. The book you picked up happens to be my favorite. If you turn to page 118 you’ll find a poem about churning seas, angry thunderclouds, and a drifting boat that lost its sail.

10. I think I finally found my sail.

at 5:45 am I
exhale shadows, rub ravens
from my eyes

light floods
demons flee
I am awakened

by morning's new mercies.

Over breakfast
we read the letter we wrote you
I was shaking and he
looked at me with the eyes of a child
the strong one
the Protector
he looked at me with the eyes of a child
he said,
"I never want to get over her."
Me too, Dad.

Me too.

Please, I've forgotten
how to hold a pen, she said.
Those were the words that
convinced me to write a letter
from a stranger to a stranger.
So this is a message to you
from her.

She's asking how you're doing.
She wonders if the stars are brighter where you are.
You know,
there's a meteor shower coming
in a few weeks' time, she's
she's asking if you knew, and if
you'd watch it with her at eleven in the evening the Saturday after the next
so she'd feel like you were right there beside her
pointing out which streak held the most brilliant color
and if you're asking,
she's doing fine.

She's wondering if you know
how silkworms spin silk,
because a friend asked her the other day
she didn't know how to reply except by telling herself
that you would've known, so
how do they spin silk?
Let me know as soon as possible, she says
my friend wants to know.
But I think she's asking that as an excuse to hear your voice
but also because she really wants to know
how silkworms spin silk
and if you think jade is the nicest kind of green
or if you prefer hiking or swimming
if you agree that innocence is just untested character
and if you're asking,
she's longing for answers.

She's hoping you don't think of her,
and she's hoping you do.
She wants me to tell you that
she wants you to remember
but she wants you to forget the pain,
so might as well forget everything
because hurt is the price of loving someone.
She confesses that she's tried to stop
writing about you
but every time she sits down to
write her soul into words
your memory slips in and dances off her pages
and she tries to stop it
and if you're asking,
she's trying to find ways to make thinking about you easier.

According to her,
she's quieter now
not just her mouth but her feet,
her hair
her eyes
her spirit
Look at what you've done, she says.
I

I've always been a terrible liar.
Please, I've forgotten
how to hold a pen.