320

Staying still is only neutral
if you can't move.
Do you keep your feet planted
when the wind tempts you?

Well you struggled to stand
for so long with the ground
pushing up at your feet.

319

In the seat next to you
her legs were like tree branches.
She must be some kind of unattainable
when she looked like your sister
every time you thought to move
your hand from your thigh to hers.

318

Really we're all amputees
though you say you never though you'd be
I don't remember much of being small
when I'd lean over to scratch my ankle

317

I wouldn't have asked for it
but your permanence is comforting.
Alive, you were always changing
and after we burned the day I'd learn I loved another you,
all that was left to heat into dirt was everything you ever wrote.

316

Our shoulders have been touching since Michigan.
You tied your shoe in Illinois
in no special manner
and when one of us gets off the train
I will not think of you as gone.

315

Who decides what's only in our heads
Once my eyes were closed
it could have been a heated tire,

with my hand pinching my nose
a shot of thunder in the dark,

and with my ears covered it could have been
my own layer of wilderness
underneath the tops of trees
underneath the stars

314

All the furniture is nailed into the floor
and all the lamps and plants and clocks
glued down to desks and table tops

so when the sun began to rise and I finally
got home from you
it looked as if I'd never been away.