Other thingsget in the way.Drinks sometimesfrom a mess of ceramic mugsnever touched by machine or awkwardness,or fear, or regretthat gets in the waywhen we talk. When we talk,do you see the lightbending around my eyesas if something were there? When we talkin tones that pass for friendly,connected as partners in bed,exhausted from a day or…

I imagine it ends slowly, soI move at the speed of small fire—ritual ignition. My smoke knows which way is up.I wrestle with the match,the still engine held in compression. Let it happenas I search for the tamp,in a single, blue exhale. I sit in the river,water and stonecurling, rectifying. Sunlight splits vapor and current—orange…

Fireworks. The dog whimpersand you unwind your legsto the concrete floorlike an old hinge.The irregular flash and pop of idiocy outside as you pull her haunchesfrom under the bedand hold her shaking bodyagainst your chest.If only your dog liked scotchas much as I do.

You’re more the same,unchanged, unaged in your celestial transit. I am unfamiliar to my younger self,ripened and bearded,a crucible, a failure of trajectory,and there’s no direction namedfor the way I look to you. Pieces of me remain, still:I still stutter,wake to watch thunderstorms,sip water from the tapand stare out my window,water over my lips and…

​I can’t keepguns, soit’s me and my cats. ​They’re great hunters, cats,but terrible hikers,as trustworthy as I am.So, out here, nothing separates me ​except ​twenty miles of limestone,dirt finer than bone meal,ghosts of limber pinestunted and brittled,dry air and drier snow, ​and the wish of—of annihilation by meteorite. ​Long odds, I know—staring down the cragof…

When I die I’ll still be reading this poem to you in this momentlike an orange,sliced and sweet,at an unmarked crossingthirty-two years in the future. I’ll be in a bad state that night,but remember how alive I am now:the anxiety of my breathagainst tangled steel,the tremble of my fingers on thispage and the steering wheelwith…

What makes the grass grow?Blood. This student knows it already;Her notebook filled beyond reasonwith formulas and drawings.academics and vocabulary beyondmy own. It’s filled with dates and battles,journal entries, and topographies of acceptanceof things that shouldn’t be accepted,knowledge far beyond trigonometry, syntax,biology, beyond happiness. It’s filled with the cold scent of funeral homes,Natural Ice and hash…

Other thingsget in the way.Drinks sometimes.Sometimes drinks, anyway,from a mess of ceramic mugsnever touched by machine or awkwardness,or fear, or regretthat gets in the way, that is,when we talk. When we talk,what colors do you seebending around my eyeslike a wet ring on a table? Is it the yellow early morning darknessthat sees you even…

And did you get whatyou wanted from this life, even so?I did.And what did you want?To call myself beloved, to feel myselfbeloved on the earth.-Raymond carver We were in the living roomsitting apart stiltedwith the unsaid and now said,wondering why and if you got whatyou wanted,Your cyanic eyes seeing clearlyin perfect slicing futures. And did…

The ghosts of mountains, riversand owls,the ghosts of soft blanketsand softer skin,the ghosts of tenderness, illness,and loss,the ghosts of pine and peat, passion and earth,and other fragrances of you, the ghosts of four hour drives,the ghosts of afternoon naps,lazy jazz Sundays,and whiskey and wine,the ghosts of lamentation, the ghosts of flowers eaten by cats,the ghosts…