selections

Anchorage, AK
There’re 30 minutes in between my realizing I still smell like you & falling asleep. The memory of you lingers like clove cloying my mouth, with the difference being that I can always take more of you. When you turned to me, in Anchorage, in the bed of the pop-up camper, you told me that I’d have you forever. Then how am I to read these mornings, bitter like coffee dregs, when the covers on your side of my bed are upended? I always take my steps to the kitchen cautiously. You are always waiting with pancakes, except today, when you are not. I have grown so used to the roiling of your sleep that I wander dreamless without it.


[Morning when looking in the mirror]
Morning when looking in the mirror to find stubble and toothbrush foam, sad papercut dawns without you. Floorboard creaks unfamiliar & I've lost the energy to make the covers. Not that they're needed much anymore; heat of the summer, smoky windows meaningless without you. Long car hauls, leftover dog hauls, television on the couch. All of this amounts to the act of waiting, not much else, only less holy without you.


back