I am getting better at these things, I think.
Being in my body like this. I am like
a small bowl of Japanese lilac blooms,
a bath of hands in Dutch painted porcelain.
But I think this tea kettle is better than me.
Always makes a hushing I wish for
after reaching a single note I could never
scream, that I’ve tried singing through
the open mouth of someone else.
Someone with ribs for that sort of thing,
the pure guts to be that loud when down,
but I am more like a birdcall. A flutter
of turning pages from a kitchen window
wind, or the whir of a fan, oscillating
from one room to another, from one
set of wet sheets to another. The reverie
of a broken dryer, in the summer heat,
when it doesn’t even matter to me,
as I lay on a stripped bed. I am still soaked
from a cold shower. I don’t even use
a towel, just pat my face with a pillowcase
and lay quiet with the windows open,
where I can smell someone’s cigarette
from outside. I don’t mind falling asleep
to someone else’s smoke smell. It makes
me feel less alone, like there’s someone
there to turn off the lamp light at midnight.
Someone to pour a glass of water in the dark
and drink it right at the sink. Someone
else’s crawling into bed next to you rustle.
The cure of a forehead kiss goodnight,
but I think my prayer rests on the ash
of something more than a cigarette.
Hopefully a heaven of white noise,
or even the sound goodmorning makes
when it rolls toward me in bed.

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