Distance

Toledo, 2014

For weeks, I went the wrong roads,forgave the wrong gods forthe wrong misdeeds because it’s cold& I can’t remember what it’s liketo have skin, all of mine groundto powder. Nothing is more fragilethan the head of a squirreltoo slow to move when the carapproaches & afterward too slowto ever move again. There’s a lessonin everything. Last night, I dreamedwe walked by the river & it wasstill frozen, ice-jammed. What couldmove there? Today, drivingacross the Maumee, the enginebarely making it up the incline,today we’re playing this game calledreconstruction, we’re building—I don’t know. I can’t ruin any moremysteries. I can’t say this any clearerthan I already have, but I’ll try—if the trees ever thaw, if the lakeever starts bubbling, we’ll dancelike there’s only us & summer,like anything else is just partof the algae blooms, undrinkable& foreign. It’s easy to let the sunbring us back to life. It’s harder,though, to see through steel & glass,to pick up the snow whenit’s already gone. We won’t try.Tell me you want a bed filledwith all the water the city can’t have& I’ll fill the bottles upuntil I can’t handle touching them.