I’m made of lists
Knocking on doors, I’m unprepared
half my mother,

I’ve been praying the Lord unmake me
Strip me bare, smelt me to my core

I’m hastening to be someone you could love
Could you?

Could you.

Beneath the corymbia citriodora
somewhere in time, an eternally lilac
womb—
the lord knit our ribs together
and blessed the future laid out
above us like a canopy
Every moment strung across
a cotton string, dried orange slices
in the evening sun, twisting to and fro
soft and crystalline, faintly venous—

We weren’t left without the knowledge of
time or the length at which it would stretch
how I might Look for you every day—
have you been looking for me?

Please look for me.



Please look for me

Early spring, a couple weeks ago;

You came over to help me burn the rest of
The dry brush and weeds in my backyard
Because the day before I nearly burnt down the back fence

we stood by the west pickets and watched the
cows grazing in Seufer’s pasture, mostly silent
A perfectly cool morning, mild in the sun but
We could still see our breath—

I made you coffee and we leaned
against the warm gate of your truck
to talk about nothing, enjoying the
Quiet lull, the unusually busy traffic on my
street

You said you had to go and we hugged
because we always do, always long,
longer than we should

And that’s the last time we saw each other.

His tongue is searching my mouth
for who I used to be and I’m staring at the
Amber lampshade above my bed—

His sideburns are thinning, just in the last year,
I have committed this particular view to memory
many times, his arms; Liana vines enveloping my waist, ankles tucked around my calves,
I am a tiny animal
between his limbs.

I am memorizing the way his hairline fades into his neck, the shape of his forehead, the bistre shadow of his browbone in the foreground—

I do this to remember, I do this to hide you away
In an atrium, in the pulmonary trunk
I keep everyone there, so when they’re gone
when they are inevitably gone—
I can visit,
A softened recollection where I’ve allayed the pain of letting go—

I knew this would happen,
but Ive touched;
I’m touching you anyway,

What is it worth—
if I can’t remember?

You’re kissing me,
Im easing you into
my heart—

You always wanted that.

And how do I become known by God?
how do I find solace in Him traversing
the plains of my heart?
how does that become a lullaby ?
I am still
figuring it out in the golden highways
of my spirit, whispering into the
abandoned rooms while I
sink—

Groanings too deep for words
Too deep for
Anything.

I only just realized
what joy can be—
It is a small thing,
I think,

In the back office
at the bank,
If you leave the chair canted
towards the south window,
the sun will warm the small
blue seat around 11:45

It has always been
such an inconsequential thing to me
always out of reach—

But it’s there,
A quarter before noon
every day.

I have fled from this profound
sense of loneliness my entire life—

Nothing has ever felt right, good or
Safe. I have hardly found another person
that seems to speak the same language,
Am I to be a single aldis lamp in the night
flashing across the great sea with
nothing but the stars to

twinkle back at

Me.