Day 1.
Like we were the last to get it.
A puzzle melted, drained, molded,
cut with string by the daughter of a demi-god,
dropped into time and
set into motion.
We were the last to know
ourselves,
the truth of us.
Like a joint surprise birthday party.
No. Like amnesia from a bad accident
that made us forget what Christmas was
and forty years later when we see the needles,
the bulbs humming and radiating,
we know again what we'd always known,
but mysteriously forgotten.
Day 2.
Time being mortal herself,
existing only in the minds of we decaying bodies,
sees us create flecks of the eternal
and is overcome with an embarrassing hiccup fit
(which she only gets when she's truly jealous).
How dare we know of a thing like this--
Rough fingertips on greasy summer backs.
A thing more powerful--
How dare we decaying bodies skip mortality
like 3rd period senior year
by finding another decaying mouth and
pressing our chapped lips against it
like our tongues are fireflies
and our mouths are empty Smuckers jars.
Day 3.
Pretend we all believe in God here.
Now.
Pretend we all believe God loves people.
Now be a person.
You're starting to understand my overwhelmedness.
Day 4.
If an extra second together delays that
scrape your stomach out like a young jelly coconut
sickness
for an extra second,
I'm taking it.
Because five minutes before I got out of the car,
I saw you take a flight,
bald first in the front and then in the back,
love a younger woman then vomit for a month,
then leave her,
remember the joys of football, fishing, and me,
and die.
And I tell you, I mean it, my heart broke.
Because it will truly
all
happen that fast.
Day 5.
I write emails,
I eat Raisin Bran,
I blast bad pop music,
I pray,
I sleep,
I cough louder than I do in public,
I pick my nose,
I drink,
I watch the stars and feel enormous,
I humble myself,
I start novels,
I wait.
I do all this like always,
only now I imagine you seeing it all
and loving it.
Day 6.
Frantic. Caffeinated and late
is how my cells, my whole self
feels.
Like an Adderall binge--
like I thought they were so small and cutely blue
that I took four at once to make sure they'd kick in and
GOOD GOD did they ever.
Now I'm racing the clock for a deadline
that may or may not be coming.
Grasping frantically with subway car palms at a body
that may or may not be coming.
On the last car of a late train,
and you say there's always next time,
but you forget I leave tomorrow.
How many stops til ours?
How many blocks til ours?
How many stairs,
how many turns of the key to the left or the right?
How many gasps interrupted by sighs?
How many mid-dream laughs?
Mid-sleep coughs?
Snoozed alarms?
How many kisses goodbye?
How long til you forget?
How long til I do?
And after all that how much will it have mattered?
More or less than it seemed in the beginning
when everything was
the start of a fugue
or the end of an era?
Day 7.
And as much as I liked it,
I have to leave today.
And I think I might become asthmatic,
if I have to keep breathing with your
sticky, sugary, body warm fingerprints
smudged all up and down my soul.
It's too much to ask of me.
It's more than I asked for.
Now.
You're starting to understand.
