139. Now:

I can do things
Like wear heels
And not worry
About being
Larger than you.
I can expand myself
Without apology,
Without
Guilt.

138.

I have tried
to write about this
for two
years. Did you know
that a cancer patient's earlobes
will curl
when the person
is close
to death?
That is the best I can tell of
any of it,
this beast.

137.

I became
what you wanted
in the dark,

and now every constellation
knows
my name.

136.

Speaking to you
Opens the dark tunnel
If I must
I choose the lilacs
Blooming in spring
Over the edge
Of the knife.

135.

A man in front of me
in a subway tunnel,
wearing your cologne.
At home, on the floor
of the bathtub,
I purge the rest of you
from my body.

134.

My kitchen smells like you
in springtime, morning.
Brewing coffee, sliced melons,
my hair damp across my cheeks.
This, a first, has made me
want to surrender Boston.
Last night I dreamed
that I gave you a black eye
without touching you.
You said it was because
we weren't speaking.
I know.

133.

I did not come home last night.
I drank gin and tonics that did not taste
like you. I went to bed dizzy,
did not recognize the ceiling, the shape
of the bathroom light switch.
I am thinking about getting another tattoo.
Perhaps in a year, most of my visible skin
will look foreign to you.
This thought should not be appealing.
Things keep faltering.
I am trying not to be a machine.
The trees in my part of town
look as though they've been dipped in cotton.
I can not even remember whether it's oak or maple
outside of your bedroom window.

132.

The rotting in my stomach,
the browning of the petals,
the spoiled fruit on the table.
I have learned:
simply because a person exudes
a gentleness and washes the world
in an ocean of calm,
does not mean that there is not
a violence inside.

131.

I have a short list of things
that are becoming problematic.

Yesterday, downtown crossing
was on fire, and I nearly called you
because I worry.
And when I worry I imagine things
like you in your high-rise,
flames everywhere,
so while we have not exchanged a word
in two months,
I wanted to know
that you were safe.

Safety, I've learned,
is surprisingly subjective.

Friends give advice. Say
to keep a six-month hourglass
on my windowsill. To take notice
of the damage, because that is where
the light will filter in.

They mean well,
but they have not lived
in my body.

I am expected to learn
how to live without you,
but what scares me is that I am.
I sleep alone and with less
dreams, I have dinner
with coworkers in place of you,
I buy my preferred juice
for the refrigerator
instead of yours.

I miss Devens and the woods,
Maine and the salt,
your gingham shirt
that I wrote a poem about
when we first met
nearly four years
ago. It is irrelevant of course,
but from time to time it clicks
through my head like ticker tape.

Everything can be measured,
now, and I cannot forget
your shape.