There Aren't Enough Words in the Alphabet to Capture Us

“Apple Trees at Olema” tore the air out of my chest

because when Robert Hass wrote it, he was thinking of us.

Cover the bed in strips of paper, other’s poems —

dotted i’s and crossed t’s that aren’t mine to keep.

Eggshell walls stare back at you, disrupting the

focused movements of your hands and the wires you toy with.

Gaining back these hours that you once spent with me

has not treated you well. Something was steady and now

it’s rocking wild. The fan runs to keep me company.

Just stay away for now, maybe you were right and distance will

keep us close. My friends would be happy if we never found each other again.

Lack of light and impulse, you were never a hurried

motion, you were the patient unfolding of peony blooms right before summer.

Now I think about you when I’m drunk because that is the safest

opening to the seven months you were there with me.

Packing away was always your way to cope but I tug at these boxes with

questions and feelings you won’t process — maybe our ways are selfish.

Reckoning with the leftovers, we could never see eye-to-eye. The

sun isn’t to blame for blinding us. I could feel you with every

taxed step you had to take past me after what happened. If I could I would

untuck the silver out of the lining you threaded for yourself.

Vie April away with me to see who is moving on faster. I can't

wish our history away. If you ran an

X-ray on our remains, you'd still find specks of magic untouched by radiation.

You try to cover the sound but I’ll still say what’s on my mind. You will

zig-zag around reality as I run circles in uncertainty.