arrows cut into crisp air,

falling maple seeds spinning

in their own fatal orbit.

we can still love. i have practiced

forgiveness like an art: in full color.

look at us: like trees in october dusk,

still gorgeous in our melancholic burning.

we have written love letters in warzones.

made musical instruments from old guns.

the ground is not salted by summer leaving

darkness is not a barren land. light can still grow.

let me say it again: i’ll choose you every time.

unmarred, bone-white fingers

on crimson scepter jewels as i

descend, the queen who became

a pawn when chess became

anarchy, hope sitting heavy and

radiant in gold on my head to

deceive, pretty away the pain

for another day while i sit in

abstinence, once drunk on my

merriment but sobering for the

proletariat, fashioning my face

into the rosy smile they will

immortalize, carving my image

into gold and paintings and

facades, eating brioche on a throne

ghost-silver as a guillotine.

bruising the palisade peach

that wiggles its way down

to the bottom of the tote

like a worm i heard of

in some giant version of this

where i am orphaned

and setting sail for new york

instead it is the western slope

for three days in

the back of my stolen hatchback

and frigid water

to wake up the part of me

that imagines, again

I’m leaving again, not

thinking of you

thinking of you (somewhere in-between) the

afternoon

stops on its head somersaults over

then there’s night

me, you, a park without trees

my hair dyed green, you say (anything)

I will love you for three years only

after a walk through a lonely suburb, the train

to Richmond then the 351 bus with my face against

the glass thinking —

this is the first time I have seen the sky in a year

this is how I know my name will change when

the rules lift

on the walk home my head’s a soft light,

fraying at the edges light, my heart scooped

out onto the dinner table light

you drive home through the valley in Washington

eventually Oregon, Idaho, and Salt Lake City

with a girl made of water by your side

that spring I had never felt about becoming another person

so often.

Who knows what we know

except each other –

that’s why

a family gather round each other,

at the table for drinks -

twilight, sun begs off

but people don’t –

Windermere Avenue - everyone brings wine.

Ted’s dating a sweet girl named Lisa -

who brought the corkscrew?

who agrees that,

there’s no better place

in our time of time

but here,

by the cemetery, the grammar school,

for gossip, photographs and sunset –

who’s not here?

this one lost to the church,

another in the military,

he moved to Hong Kong,

she smokes pot,

he fell in love with Julia,

she went on to marry Bobby,

proposed to her at the boathouse -

no one’s dead

who shouldn’t be,

no one’s in prison

though Wayne came close,

Amanda’s still driving

despite the accidents –

one pours another round,

another shows a sketchbook.

a third takes the setting sun

as a sign to settle down,

have little ones –

one family, we meet up here,

overlooking the water,

revisit the early days,

the “truth or dare” years –

too cold to go skinny-dipping

at our age,

but the times we did

need to be warmly remembered.

Your hair was pink, last time I saw. And I never got the chance to steal that striped shirt of yours,

but that’s okay. Before you’re gone for good, I must ask: do you think the gods ever cry? My

mother used to say that rain was sorrow, but she forgets too fast about the seeds buried in the

dirt. It rains here, for the first time in months, and I think it would make me glad if not for all the

rest. The television is not warm because I cannot stand to watch child death. At the very least,

the bruises on your knuckles are almost gone, a different sort of pink than your hair. Muted, as

you sometimes are. I wonder too, do you ever cry? Once, there was a spider on the floor, and you

kept it safe in your palm. When I remember that you are a memory, my body becomes strange.

My tongue becomes thick. My mandible—sore from anxious grinding. That and the blow. Fuck,

I miss you. You’re older than me, so I wonder if you remember when it wasn’t like this. Your

light brown eyes are solid ground. But is your bedspread still yellow and bright? Like a spider, I

felt safe in your palm. Was it ever not like this? I have to ask: what do people do when they are

on the precipice of falling? Is there anything to do besides punch cinder block and hard brick

wall? Please, tell me: What do we do while we are falling? Your hair is pink, but the dye is

fading. Don’t walk in the rain right after, I’ve heard people say that before. What was your

mother’s maiden name again? Things slip away, so easy. I hear the storm outside, but the rain is

stopping. Fuck, I miss you. Fuck, the world is burning. Do you touch the television and mourn

for a time when it wasn’t cold? What did you ever do with that spider? Do you think the gods are

crying?