To Live In The Distances, and: This Faith

TO LIVE IN THE DISTANCES / Tracy Philpot I always knew you would take a nap. Tm writing from down the street where my new house poUshes our distance, making deception aU the more beautiful now loving is incomplete in the present. Your names. The innocence of switching beds and plans for a year, ours—never the year in Paris— returning us to the deUcious senUity of loneliness; in empty bedrooms, I hang maps. I knew a retarded girl in love named Jean. Her parents couldn't love their faUure so moved her to Albuquerque; her boyfriend threatened to drive there. Alan managed his bicycle for two days, keen to see her. Lived at the Y. And naturally aromatic, must have smeUed Uke love, trying to get her, teeth Uke dice. The girls' names: HoUy, KeUy, in secret rhyming, matching, singing beautiful film before someone comes home. In the mornings they have coffee on the terrace of the inn. I hate what secret Uves expect: coincidences leading so close to openness. When love leaves things out we hope to see God in the face. Our hearts are smaUer than the distances they need to go. 152 · The Missouri Review THIS FAITH / Tracy Philpot Few things are as pure as abandon. Real children left in doorways. We have the most faith in things we leave behind. Please remember this moment— it is beautiful, leave behind. Imagine a landscape blue without the girl, her face unlearned how things are gorgeous when they try to carry on. He wiU never see her and cards greet him with sympathy arranged Uke time on the bed. I am asking him for once to admit this night, a single occasion, into the tiny room's worth of romance. Without someone's chUdren, this room wouldn't exist, and even later wUl lose its true name, pure as the language of bodies he won't let me speak. Let something at least be born this faU in the extra hour past midnight as we chance in a smaU amount of rain. May I have aU the dances this night? Or would you Uke to make a coUage? The Missouri Review · 153 ...