​Recess
 
​
We cannot return here,
to this rowdy alcove where
candied mouths
collide and laugh and loose
agglutinated shrieks,
intertwined
and indivisible.
We cannot sit on this
earth, this spongy slough that becomes
the desert each summer,
this fence-framed oasis that becomes,
each winter,
the frosted crown
of the world.
 
Here the wind makes excitement from exhaust.
 
Here we fought
with lips and loved
with fists.
That love is just as we left it;
it belongs now
to someone else who
knows how to take it
for granted.
 
Here we gazed at the bellies of clouds
and crowed like kooks,
unashamed and in plain view.
Here we knew what love is,
but not what it would one day be.
 
Here love is
the dream
that has not yet become
the butterfly
that has not yet become
the caterpillar
that has not yet become
a lone leaf,
half-devoured,
nodding like a fool
at the end of
a quivering
twig.





Moving Day
 

The opening of the final box
narrowed to a slit
and was sealed shut with tape
ripped from the roll.
 
The movers moved from room
to room. They whispered when we
were out of earshot
and collected their equipment.
 
You and I, we passed
through the scorched walls of
the kitchen, through the open back door
and into the yard, just for a second.
 
The patches of granulated brown,
the anthills teeming with venom
and overflowing with angry bodies:
We let our children play here.
 
Our hands detached
and, as the sun settled behind the fence,
we peered through the window
they had often peered through to see our
 
faint forms lying in the living room.
We stood there, trying to remember
more, as the door’s opening contracted,
clicked shut and locked us out.