You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

I don’t
know why
I’m in the garden
kneeling on dirt