possibly

I’ve never swept anyone off their feet
and probably never will
want to do so to anyone more than you

I’d take you to a shed by the sea
slightly rickety but cozy
where the breeze sometimes blows just the right way and

I’d pull you close
against my stubborn belly and
run clumsy fingers through your hair

I’d give you a bracelet, a necklace
a string of souvenirs
from all the places I’ve been without you and

I’d open every door
of my unexceptional life to you
and hold your hand and let you in

I’d write you a poem
and all my poetry would sing of you
slightly off-key but true as I can make it

I know I can't change your life
only show you the world I’d give
anything for you to live in with me

island vacation

It rained again today.
Sand’s less white than beige
and not quite fine
but still I felt the quivering
of the spaces between my fingers.
I walked as slowly as memory-
you and me once did
on that rainy beach more beautiful than this.

Now it’s too quiet.
Across this ocean pretending to be a lake
another island where you are not
unrolls across the horizon.
Glassy gray reflects bright blue.
Fellow travellers slice dark lines across the water
that, like them, disappear.
And what about these, my lines for you?

What about the curve of you
once right next to, once touching me?
Just another skein of rain from sky to sea?
What of our once-parallel trajectories,
the sharing of presents and histories
in effortless communion?
The same saltwater may lap at all beaches
but will our footsteps again follow the same shore?

Here’s another dispatch from where I am
to where you are. When you open this,
remember my lips against your forehead.
Remember the nearness of my smile
and the soft clarity of my voice beside your ear
and know that I think of you always.
Know that though my lines may sometimes bend
they always - will always - reach for you.

here.

here the same wildflowers
first I ever picked you
(tiny perfect delicate)
peek out and shout your name

here the same trees grow
shady spaces to shelter us
here the same clouds form out of reach
here the same wind blows

here the same sun
descends the same sky
into the same ocean we once watched
slowly darken together

here the same ghost
suffuses the same world
flows out of the same void
your absence continually leaves

hear the same distance
hear the same wind
hear the same flowers
hear the same longing