i want to write essays about your body
to preach you to ears who
have never heard
your laugh.

i want to create
constellations in your skin
and give each one a history
that i will read to myself
when it is the middle of the night
and you have turned away in your sleep.

because we don't need a background
in physics to know
that i will never
truly, fully, wholly,
understand you—
but you will always be here
covered in that cloud, oh
that cloud of unknowing.

you turn around
and my eyes
traverse your spine.
your love touches
mine. life is fine.
life is fine.

I act, I react—
I did not impact your life the exact way you did mine.
You attract me.

I act, I react—
You were the one fact
I could never forget
and I was abstract.
I know I was only there to distract you
from your other lover
who did not love you
as much as I.

I act, I react
and I follow the path
that subtracts
you
from
me.

I wonder how many
solved games of solitaire
are equivalent to
an ******.

When I was seventeen
I was content with marriage.

I am more afraid of commitment
when we do not acknowledge it.

Do not go blindly into
this night.

Tell me where we are going.
I turn my high beams on
when I drive the freeway.

It doesn't matter
what you tell me
and what I tell you.

You could be mine
and I could be yours
but twenty three days of silence
could write a lot more love letters
than us.