All I really wanted was a sign.
I just wanted somebody to tell me to try.
And then when no one did,
I realized that only I could decide;
to either live my life or just wait to die.

This is what he promised me:
August, and berries that fell
right into my hands; he
promised me handstands. He
promised me bees, he said
the nights would smell sweet
and wet flower petals would
stick to my toes. He said I'd
just know. He promised me
sparrows, and switchgrass that
crept past the hem of my skirt.
He promised me clean dirt, and
hard work. He promised an
August that I'd always remember,
then stayed 'til November.

I remember you like accidental
photographs: sun flare, skin,
the tops of trees. Knees. Your shirt-
sleeves in a dove grey breeze. (I arrange
the photos like a slow striptease.)

woke every morning and
dressed in the sun, then
dreamt in the breezeway
where the day's laundry
hung. She listened for
him in the summery hum;
sometimes she was honey,
sometimes she was stung.

My mother washed potatoes
one by one while my father
went carousing with his
favorite gun; I dragged sticks
through dusty gravel while
I watched it all unravel,
wondering what to make of
such an ugly thing as love.

I have written you one
hundred and eighty
one poems about stars
and blackberries fat
as thumbs, and your
hands and sweet
plums, because that's
what I do:
word play, cabaret –
but if these are just myths
I perpetuate because I'm
a perpetual liar, believe me
                                            anyway.

At night we were a fresco 
painted by an astronaut, our 
messy bed the chapel of a
voyeuristic God, where glory 
worked with hurried hands
in frenzied fellowship and
hallelujah was a sigh that
quivered on my lips, then we
nodded off like angels of our
own apocalypse; it was made-up
love, when we woke up,
the dreamed up stuff of kids.