Scope
I’ve been alive for a little
while--
You for longer, ambling on
cobblestones and
gravel paths that coat your feet
with cinders.
You wondered: when will walking
feel like home
when Sun has circumscribed its
name
around your shape so many times,
and you
have circumvented hers when once
you spoke
it hopefully, linked its sounds
with yours.
It’s felt like forever but you
never said forever
until forever felt like someplace
you might be.
Those syllables aren’t strange,
though I wonder
how we know that they are true: for-ev-er,
the length of time our human
brains can chew
but not digest, bubble gum
swallowed in second grade.
Someone told you it would stay
there all your days,
and how are we to know any
different? I picture you in ashes,
though you said you’d rather slip
whole into the sea
as you are, or be buried without a
wooden box.
I asked if I could hire someone
to hoist you
overboard, someone to dig the
grave.
You picture me in a black dress—not
because it’s
tradition, because you simply
know.
And though it’s only
mind-forever, it feels like longer
if my burned-up body gets to mix
with yours like
our living limbs intertwined in
evening and at dawn.
I suppose it could be ghosts or
God, whispering
Water
and bloom, water and bloom,
and the hissing makes us sure our
feet will step
in step until forever makes
phantoms
of these early days of love.
