November 5/30
I woke up with you under my pillow
I put you on my back before class
and I stained the ceiling with your face
in the dim classroom where
I learned about dead artists
That night,
the ark where I kept the last clasp of our hands
was rocking in the saltwater seas of my lower lid
I let you hit the desk a hundred times
the hospital
the living room
my birthday candles
I wiped them up with a notebook
called it a poem
and started walking
it was 3 am
a bitter manhattan night
where I’d wear grandmother’s advice
around my neck
buy a coffee
walk to the greenest part of the grid
and let my head tilt back on an empty
seven-seated bench.
you would never guess
what I saw
the first time I had written about you
(since our last night 8 months ago)
shared an hour with the northern lights
something you or I had never seen
I started thinking
how naive everyone would think me to be
should I write about
how strong your love was
that it brought color to a night sky
as if my thoughts had leaked out the window
and spilled upwards, tricking gravity
into thinking the words were evaporated tears
or boiling pasta water
do I think
that just ‘cause I found
a 3 hour window
with your face pressed against it
after 245 days of staring
while a hundred astronomers
already had you marked off on their calendar
do I really think
tonight was more than just coincidence?
Absolutely.
