237. Love letter, lost letter.

My legs
are maps of the blacks and blues
of the acres we failed
to put between us.

236. Direct

Not here. It has been many months
and none of us are tired anymore.
We can draw perfect circles,
eyes closed, humming our favorite song
backwards.

My friend tells me Venus is retrograde
and this means we work inside ourselves
and in forty-something days something about it
is supposed to end up on the outside.
I'd like that. For this to survive
on the outside.

Thing is, most of the time,
you open your mouth so wide
you're afraid you'll turn inside out.

And there is so much time spent
being afraid.

Preferred: No more room for sorrow here.
No more nights on the lawn of city hall,
no more accidental landings,
no more stolen washing machines.
We are both a window and a door.

Last night, Christmas, I don't remember the weather
but we almost got exactly what we wanted.

One: I think you belong to South Carolina.
Two: The landscape shakes
when you talk.
Three: You would like to not see another winter.
Four: When you've been drinking,
you ask me to go with you.

I don't like the snow either,
but I am New England and New England
is me. If I am with you, then I am a softness
that my body cannot afford
to be.

Yours.

235. Birthday celebrations in your early thirties.

You have the legs
of a wild animal
and my voice is too loud
to make you stay anywhere.
You burn yourself alive, I love you,
I love you, and this is where I leave you
one more time. It is
the ugliest circle,
and I've run out of sheets
to throw over it. Give me gasoline.
Quiet now, hand to mouth,
we are always living
hand to mouth, which is,
for all intents and purposes,
backwards. This time,
I will start a war.
"You see beauty
and I see something else."