Just give me five minutes
and I'll work my way from bottom to top

Forget about coffee and eggshells
bread in the box
forks in drawers on their backs
oranges
apples
pears and
palm oil.

Let your fingers grow as roots do -
fistfulls of sheet,
shoulder blades retract,
arch emerge.

Press in,
give up,
let out.

Morning.

Driving along the northern border of Massachusetts
imagining an existence less severed,
when beauty,
upon me,
is no longer wasted.

It has been years since I've been breathless.

Can I guide a son toward kindness
without hypocrisy or
an air
ironic?

Is the possession of my own life an illusion?

If I retreat to the forest will there be anything there to find?

One day I will relinquish my name
and my memory,
then polished or dull,
will sleep mute
beneath
the feet of foxes
and
fowl.

Every now and then you come to mind,
clever little thing.
I heard that you traded in your pills and powder
for your natural color
and a wardrobe that covers your
curves.

Everyone deserves a chance at happiness,
even if temporarily,
it comes at the cost of
mine.

Somehow I never hated you
though you more than once deserved it.

A consequence of long nights trying to keep you safe.

Cards on the table,
I cared for
but never actually loved
you.

Love is for when you love what they are
instead of what you want them to be.

But there we were side by side at night
me naive
and you trying to find yourself.

I hope you finally did.