If Not the River

POEM AFTER

more data makes the picture less clear

I draw an arrow

lay my body on either side

WATCHING THE MOVIE

I want to only be crying

my traits continue

to weave together

after years in front

of the VCR

I don’t press pause

soon enough

the carpet pattern

a ghost in my knees

POEM OF THE PAINTING

one navy smudge

cut down the center

drowning up

to a corner of light

POEM AS THE WATER

guilt soaked the riverbed

you dug your toes in

when you waded

POEM AS BIRDS

a whole daydream spent

on your bad thoughts

an evergreen vaguely shaking

would it have been better

if I’d called

in the morning

there is no you here

clouds keep moving

a cat you won’t meet

waits on the step

how could this be more evident

PASSWORD (yours)

promise not to leave first

PASSWORD (mine)

promise

POEM WITH PHONE ON AIRPLANE MODE

I turn them off so I can hear you better

the sea a moth in my head

POEM NOT MAKING IT TO THE PARTY

you crawl behind the chip in your front tooth

die face into the river*

I am not patient but am willing at least a few more times

to rework the song

high voices singing behind you

all I want is to watch your body

fill in with itself

how once the jukebox

made us dance

I walk along the water

looking for your feet in the sand*

*these inaccuracies

POEM WITHOUT SEEING THE OCEAN

I do not drive

to the town

where you were born

to tell you

when you died

roses

lined the highway

all it made me do

put air between their petals

was live

tenses complicate

the mistakes I have not yet made

I do not regret

all of them at once

ANIMAL ANIMAL

I make others feel small

late birthday present in the mailbox

while the house collapses

really it is adding

marks and scratches

the pages I dog ear

how I can barely tell

when most people

have read a book

I go boring again

see you in car windshields

see you in stripes of light

across the pavement

I wonder if the sun

folded into your neck

trying to return you to me

I write the address wrong

POEM MOVING NORTH ON HIGHWAY 287

I can’t pretend Colorado doesn’t exist

pulled clouds falling up from a field

cows everywhere and antelope

I stop in the middle of the song

in the middle of the road

multiple horses of the same color

don’t respond

I didn’t finish reading

you are dead and

I don’t know what to call you

I think some cows are wild

the way I want this to go

is nourish me

next to water

burn something on a beach

Colorado is not the ocean

multiple geologic formations

billions of years apart

I am told their names over and again

I do not learn

in this way I am my father

losing a book under the driver’s seat

I told myself I would stay in the right lane

I said I would not be jarred by a wind created

by anything else

the truth is the car is heavy

and I am alone

how was I supposed make this

into something you

your death finally in place

of a question

when I ask other people

what they remember

they say how your body

would turn

with everything

still in its hands

I thought I’d think of you as free

an affirmation

of our lack of belief

no geologic time

my handwriting already ash from your skin

a hit horse on a highway

leaves the pavement

with a stain so large it’s hard to see

how much blood did you have

what slid into the ocean

and how much was a shape in the sand

SALT ELEGY

when there was nothing else

I left

held the mirror up

you behind my shoulder

TIMSHEL

I heard it was too much

the billion cubic feet of water pressing

into the ceiling of your skull

there are no oranges at the bottom of the ocean

no way to keep a peel’s residue from disappearing

between your fingers

I put my own cold hand on my knee

from Idaho to Oregon to the corner of Washington

is 500 miles

how could you have known

that when you choose to leave

they bring you right back

brutal

as I round past a semi

you seem to be breathing

crawling up the shore

but a body does not lose

the memory of water

your clothes still damp with sea

NOW NOW


so as much air as possible

not a person

sitting alone at a table

waiting for someone else

to arrive

but a person

remaining

at the table after

UNTIL AGAIN

I did not steal the flowers

they came out of my skin

with very little water

and no song

from the ground

instead of this

could I do something slow

on purpose

pick up a wet sand dollar

crush it back into desert