Love, be sick as I am sick.
Hold the door for a stranger.
Tell it to the chicken hawk
one thousand miles away.

Hesitate and let the wind pinch
that blanket of sawdust we left
on our patio.  Who even remembers
what we were trying to build?

Lift me, as you lift the sky,
and I will still choose to lay my head
in all the world’s gutters.

I tried to be a ringing bell.  I tried
to be the fearlessness they stole
from you.  I replicated your lose

by stealing bread from the drugstore.
I turned around before I reached the corner.
While we waited for the rain,
we wilted.

The sun was green behind the clouds,
but we never talked about it.
When you looked through me,
could you see my tangle of stars?

Was there a pattern to our universe?
A lap quilt for God to spill tea on?
I closed my eyes, began to burn
darkness as a source of light. 

Memories now:
two orange circles, one for each
of your eyes; coffee rings pressed into

your mother’s oak table; circles of salt
where the dead can’t bother you;
a thoroughness of my love,
a dedication to you.