POETRY

Wake

Morning reaches for you low through the living room's window
wrapping your calf then your waist as you move from the table,
pass the bedroom door.

After you leave I will drink milk in my tea and read a gardening
book, flip to a page in the chapter called "Garden Rooms" and return
to a deli in a far away city when I barely knew you.

The air there is dark and cool, the whole dill pickle sliced
into fourths, wrapped in wax paper, placed last in the brown bag.

We walk down streets full of sun. Brick and brownstone row
houses radiate the heat. We push through a picketed gate into a long narrow yard
walled with spikes of buds that reel above us. Wild
flowers float over corridors of high grass.

The air is warm and so heavy the bees can only hang in place, babies
must sleep. Couples recline on blankets, their quiet talk a soothing hum
as our parents' voices were before we found language.

Today you are going to another city and I can imagine I won't have you forever. I can
feel you are not mine even now and I envy this morning,
its tendrils embrace you so easily. If you did not return this is how
I would always picture you: moving through light and out of my reach.