the days that I lived through with you collapse
into flashes. In the air, there are clouds
to remind us we're easily bruised or we're
drifting & permeable; things shoot right through us
like suffering does or like spring or a bird.
Memories of you are not you
& some idea of you is not you. Words often
kill us because it's blood that they're made of
& we're taking a stand & diminished each time.
I'm a little less me than I was. The poem
pretends to be me but it isn't right. In Syracuse,
I write poems to remember who I wasn't
but who I could have been: unhurt & singing
with a loud voice about joy. In Denver, the sun
rises behind buildings that block the mountains & you
don't know yourself. You don't understand
I don't need you to make me happy. I refuse
to believe all the wrongness around me.
I choose to keep trying to name my raging, to risk
myself in efforts misdirected or true. I have located
the heart. Let me show it to you.
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