I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

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

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

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

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

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

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts

The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

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

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.