460

You didn't seem bothered
by the color in my cheeks
like I'd been somewhere with a lot of sun.

Then I was the one with someplace to be.
You were still so happy in your chair,
I left as the child I only came back to see.

459

I think I witnessed your first day on earth;
you were reading on the backyard porch
that we never used even after the summer
the wasps built their nest there.

458

It didn't take a new house
or even new furniture,
just a new spot for the keys,
different clothes on my back and on the floor,
some flowers for the table,
some patience to open the windows in the morning

because the neighbors just put up a new fence
and my old friends don't all live here anymore,
you never kept the same favorite band,
people finally stopped talking about the war.

457

In the morning there's no time too late
to sleep the rest of the day.

As good as walking up to the sixteenth floor
and waiting in the stairwell
until the office closes.

456

Even your body won't follow you
as you float through your mother's house
never wondering why the cat
is in the cooking pot

455

All the voices mixed with sounds
of clinking glasses,
mellow jazz accompanying chatter more normal
than silence as the elderly begin to grab their coats.

They all seem to know
how it feels when you're falling from a plane
and realize you're getting further from the ground,
breathe with relief and stiffen again
on your way up through the atmosphere,
when at least before you knew
you'd stop somewhere eventually.

454

Your patterns must be built into my brain.
I may not have ever seen your neck so far from your waist
but I can't find any questions
in the shadows of the room
where neither of us have ever lived,
though it seems that all the others have.
A tired woman sighs, and we can only look.

453

You came inside the small diner
and it was a new time of day,
the sky past late afternoon,
but an understanding that the sun
was behind the clouds
and could appear if it wanted to.

You squeezed the water from your hair
as I watched you scan the room for me.

452

On one of the walks that end where they started
done only to be out from the inside,
you asked me how the wind
got so cold as the ocean
when the air's so hot it drips down your bones.

I said it was something I knew nothing about
and you answered by closing your eyes,
lifting your chin until your hair blew
and then slowed and landed on your back.

451

The flight of stairs up to your apartment
just something to get over with,
like following your walk,
your head sitting on your neck
like an egg in the carton,
over to the corner in your kitchen
where you pointed at the
painting wrapped up in cloth,
then you looked down at my feet and then at the door.

450

I want to feel sorry
for the cows out in the rain.
If only they would move
or look at me lovingly
instead of standing so still
staring down at the grass.

449

Your blanket and sheets never quiet go together,
you know it's because the blanket is there in your dreams
as an article of clothing, a cloak,
an umbrella, a pocketbook, it was all my idea,
so I sleep well at night.

448

You know how simple you are
when you walk around
with your hands covering your face.

You'd laugh at the pictures they take;
they didn't mean for all of them to look the same.

447

I wouldn't have time to watch the kitchen all day
and make sure no one eats the food
and the floor squeaks in every room
and I keep glass bowls on wobbly tables.

But if you're quiet, you can all stay on my roof
just as long as no feet
hang over the windows.

446

I like the sounds you make,
soft steps up the stairs,
deep sighs and your breath collides with the air,
but I want you to move

I like the way you smell,
like tree bark and wine,
when you drop all your bags,
but I want you to move

445

Everybody knows, all my fingers
and limbs and the soft space on my neck
where you pushed down and I started to choke

They know that the whole city
blinks at the same time I blink
and sleeps when I sleep
and no one's allowed to admire the trees
unless I can admire them too

444

We've known how to dig holes
since the worms first peeked
their heads out from the dirt.

Our fingers were finally big enough
to draw the world
filled to the clouds with bones.

But as long as we can still skip down the road
to the store not far from home,
we know the sky can't go on without us.

443

I'll walk faster if it means
I'll have to wait outside your door
because I love
how nothing seems to change
where the sun hits your stoop
and you take off your shoes

442

It's my fault I let you lend me money
for lunch on the road,

that I even ended up alone in a car
with you, when your eyes to the side mirror
makes me angry anyone could ever share anything.

I slouched down, I'm still so much taller than you.
How we could be loved the same by anything.

441

Is it still ancient after
it's handled with tools handled by tools and tools
surrounded by glass, the only of its kind,
inches thick

Once it laid with the same things
that make up your yard,
but all you can find are skinny twigs,
dry dirt, and the same bush that blooms each spring

440

Everybody told me that
the colors of the world
would dull
but I haven't slept in days

My skin's never looked more graceful
rolling over my elbows as I unbend my arms
and when I mistake your glare in the window
for a sunset, I wish I could keep my eyes still.

439

The road won't chase the mountain
as it slowly shifts back to the sky,
but nothing will ever grow fast enough
to block your view of the cars
standing on top of the highest climb,
even if you're so far it'd take
the rest of your time to walk there.

438

I went to see the church's ruins,
to reach and touch its age,
rebuild it without having
to change it with my hands,
and wake up the resting people,
tell them it's back and it'd open again.

You're so young and full to look at,
I can't imagine you unreal
or dated or a bunch of things
I mixed together in a dream.

Nothing impossible can exist
in the same place as you,
so I'll come home when I'm tired
and I'll tell you what I saw.

437

You realize you're the only one on the train
who's happy to hear the baby cry,
for it's an excuse to stay awake
and sit still with your hands on your lap for a while.

436

If you were this far away
on the ground, you'd notice
that as you were born,
naked owning not even a name,
you'd never get back to me.

Grateful every spot on the ocean looks the same,
bomb the island and turn around the plane.

435

It's spring and then it's winter
and then it's spring and then it's fall
and I know that it's coming,
it's the most important thing because
you weren't with me at the bar last night,
and you'll never know what I wake up
looking at in the morning,
white sheets I'm afraid to dirty,
cold wood floor pressing up on the balls of my feet,
but you know whether the sky let the birds through today,
and so has everyone we've seen.

434

You like to talk about social issues
at dinner with people who you just met,
decline offers to pay for your dinner
and go back to your apartment
to lie on your belly
until it shrinks back down.

433

Have you always leaned in
doorways like that?
The person who taught you
you can't just come in must have
been the reason I don't want you to

432

Always looking for a secret room in the house,
a hidden door you just never noticed,
you're waiting to move the furniture
until the neighbors die or decide to stay
and your daughter moves
and you've already forgotten what the kitchen floor looked like
before it was retiled.

431

You waited downstairs for me to get my jacket
and I went out the door before
you realized I was ready to leave

430

I can only love what I remember of your voice
and the clumsy way you walked when I knew you

I always think I'm staring at you on the street
because I know I wouldn't know you if I saw you

429

The only air is a little wind
on the sun-warmed water
from the grass on your feet.

All builds up to the time of day
when you push air out of the way
and try to catch your own breeze.

428

I was taught I was delicate like an egg,
my skin just a materials when my thought leave my bones at night.

I could be a wire for electricity,
I'm no more resilient to sharp things
than my dinner meat or a pillow is.

Wood touches metal and my hand's on the knob,
I'm last night's clothing thrown onto the bed.

427

It's when I recognize
the spectacle that my eyes are further
from the ground than they used to be

that your hand hangs flimsily in mine
like a piece of cloth
just after I unfold it from its neat drawer
and still my elbows stiffen and I straighten my neck

426

The musk of your jacket gets into my nose
and presses on the backs of my eyes
tricking me into thinking I am tired
enough to stay sitting with my face in your neck

425

You couldn't ever force yourself to the airport
where at least there is an escalator
you could stand on for a while
until you got somewhere you couldn't get down from
without at least remembering you were higher
and then if your still wanted to go back to bed
it'd be a little lighter out when you got there.

424

With the grass as my bed
I won't be able to choose
just one side or the other
or if I'll face one wall or the other.

And when I wake up,
I won't go down the same narrow chute of stairs
into the living room where I'll grow old.

423

Find all the materials
that let me see the square of sky
above the desk and the chair.

I took a blanket from around my shoulders
and hung it over it.

422

You make me think I don't exist
when you pull a small tree from the dirt
and plop it down right next to me,
its roots gripping its new ground.

How we'd never heard it described before
goes away when you say you'd never have known
if I hadn't sat so far in the sun.

421

Look at me from where nothing
you can put your hand on
will be too smooth.

They taught you how to cover your face
when someone's about to hit you,
and you can't remember what your arms felt like
before muted voices echoed through their veins.

420

You squeeze my neck until my face turns red
from across the room
with a tender grin that loves me.
You don't realize your own hands

I explain I must have gotten too much sun
when you inquire what's wrong,
then you release me and go on

419

I was born where how can anything be
if I 'm not looking at it
or don't feel my breath bounce off of it

Where a mirror doubles the world in size
and it's not that big,
I can decide who the first person
who ever looked at me was

418

I wish I made your beautiful
as you think you are.
I stuck me head to far out of the water
and there you were,
clean, covered in skin,
looking up at the sky and smiling.

417

The day after four years of her life,
a new train came and wouldn't take her home
unless she asked nicely

Once in grade school, she was asked
why she was so shy, and why she wouldn't come
all the way outside

Later that day, she thought she liked
the way everything moved
when she wasn't a part of it

416

Could you have done it better
now that the sun is up all the way?
You waited for its highest,
thinking it was hours ago

415

You can sit down in a clearing
with your head sticks out over the trees

I can watch you from the top of a hill
so far that I can't hear you swat down a plane,
just watch like watching a storm from inside.

Then in a step you can reach out your hand
and pluck me off from where
I stand and put me on your shoulder, sitting
back down on the ground.

414

No one is a reason for her swollen arms.
They do their jobs all day,
stopping only to eat at the cheapest place

She floats above crowded streets,
her feet grazing heads,
but she didn't come thinking that she'd need help

413

Your spine uncurled to line up
with the back of your chair,
surrounded by air, I clung on
to my own arms.

No one asked me if I wanted
pictured of burnt faces from your
mantelpiece to hold so you could
sit comfortably in your living room.

412

If I make you marry a doctor
because he makes more money than me
and I say you deserve for your kids to be
as well dressed as you'd always dreamed,

don't find me on a dim morning
to try to wonder with me.

I know I could have had you
every sunrise if I wanted to.

411

Medicine was never my first thought
when you climbed out the window
ans my stomach ached.

Who else would need the way
you'd lean over the bed
in the mornings, already clean,
and wake me with the weight
of your palms on the mattress?

410

Just because you'd always
wear your tie to go fishing
and make me repeat why
each time your patted me on the back

Just because you'd bring your briefcase
when you took me for a hike
and had me hold it when you
laced your shoes so it never hit the ground
and made me repeat why
each time you laughed and shook your head

409

They gave me a dog to keep me busy
I raised him best because I had nothing else to do
and no one knew what a good job I did
or that it was as important
as a newborn child,
a deadline and an office party,
the secretary and a new suit