110.

It was easy to become this woman.
Who does not know how to color
the air, who does not remember the taste
of mint, before mint was
a liar. This woman who does not use cinnamon
on toast, who believes in nothing
but science.

109. January 19th.

Tomorrow is your birthday.

Last year we traveled,
had a hotel room in Washington D.C.,
you let me have the window seat on the plane.
The year before, I woke up at 5am
and covered our apartment
in small notes. On the bathroom mirror,
in the shower, in the coffee jar.
Your car too, although it had snowed
the night before, and your windshield wipers
were frozen solid. The year before that
I had just realized that you were wonderful
and made you a CD of my favorite songs
(and you say that things
were never simple).

You will be twenty-eight. It's true, you know,
that you begin to come into yourself
as you approach thirty. You'll see.

Tomorrow is your birthday.
I will give you only my thoughts.

I no longer want to count the weeks
that I've been without you.
As each passes, cells in my body die off
and are replaced by ones that have never felt
your touch, your breath, the vibrations of your voice.
Eventually I will be brand new.
Perhaps clean.

Tomorrow is your birthday. I miss you very much.

108. The races versus the sawgrass.

The same bottle of liquor
has sat patiently in my pantry
since Thanksgiving. I have chosen
against dulling this.

It is strange to think of her
touching the clothes I used to touch.
Dress shirts that you may have bought
only after asking me if the color
was friend or foe against your skin.
It is strange to think

that you were the one to move on
first, as we had always declared me
as the one with a magnetic personality.
Although, if I were to be cruelly honest,

it was not the lack of opportunities
that prevented me from breaking
across the taped line, but is was my ability,
or less humbly, my wisdom, that allowed
me to say no. To pretend I was a great blue heron,
pretend I was at peace in the marsh,

and, more honesty, sometimes not needing
to pretend these things at all.
Are great blue herons hunted? I know they are seen
as beautiful, without being particularly delicate.

You required too much of me,
at the expense of my body and my stillness.
I notice the irony, with you now gone,
that I cannot sleep at night, that I am able
to see the world in light, that I make more conversation
with strangers. Again, honesty:

Something important was suffocated.
I am beginning to understand what that was,
and despite the grief I have for you, amidst the grief
I have for you, how I will get it back.

107. A haiku on the bottom thoroughly dropping out (see also: the stomach doesn't lie).

There is not a thing
That can brace for the moment
You see him with her.

106.

In Massachusetts,
it has not yet snowed
this winter.
We have not fallen asleep
to the sound of steam
trying to escape
my bedroom radiator,
nor have we woken
to cinnamon coffee
and french toast.
There is nothing about this
January that I recognize.
But I'm trying
to make it home.

105. The second haiku I have ever written: For the measurements of rebirth.

There are many things
I will move past with fervor.
But not this, not this.

104.

At seven and a half weeks
I have accumulated a list of small
changes. I am telling more
of the truth. I stain my lips
the color of raspberries.
Talk to strangers on the train.
Do not return their calls.
I stay up too late, but nearly sleep
through the night.
   It's all very trivial.

It has been long enough now.
It has not been long enough now.

The views tilt slightly, and
I imagine that you are trying to see me
as the villain. I'm not.
I'm not the hero either.

I am not covered in feathers,
nor scales. Much of the time
I am grossly human,
pointing out planets and taking
great pleasure in discussing
the scientific theories of bees,
and the possible shapes of the universe.
Once, you loved these things
about me.

When you read my letter,
did you whisper back?
Was the room flooded in light?
Or was it late, nearly midnight,
was it dark and were you
sorry?

You always said you admired my ability
to forgive. Unfortunately, for lovers
who have left me and later sought
resurrection, it was this same forgiveness
that had me say
                       no.
I owe forgiveness my life, you see.

103. A haiku for the measurements of death.

You may be the moon
But I have long extended
Far beyond my means

One-hundred and two.

The body will tell you
when something is wrong.

Sacrifice itself to push
you back onto the correct
artery.

I have been healthy
since November.

Now, tell me what you think
about coincidence

and the geese
that fly south
in winter.

One-hundred and one.

You find a picture
of your lover smoking a cigarette,
and the only appropriate thoughts
are, Who is this person, and,
What else do I not know about him.

Did you know that there is a form of grief
that actually makes a person vomit?

Say you can only have one
as your heart's companion. Lantern
or compass.

Choose. Wait
for it to be finished.