Checking my inbox. More ads. 
They call me by my given name, but to them
I’m a valve that might be coaxed to release money, 
and who are they anyway? Software. 
 
Dressing this morning I remembered again
how when you lived here you sometimes wore my shoes, 
also some pants that didn’t fit me anymore. 
We didn’t care what anyone thought, but still we appreciated 
the woods around the house. 
 
I’ll check the news later. I already know 
the numbers will be worse in this pandemic hell, 
not to mention that jerk’s tweets, his performance art 
of crafting fresh pain every day. 
 
Later I’ll write to you,
and if I write something good I can use it to make 
a poem, a cluster of words that thinks like I do.
 
The sun on the leaves. 
They turn to the light so confidently. I look
and wonder what will be left in 50 years, 100 years,
but the beauty shines today. 
 
Sharing clothes was tenderness but it was shallow,
 but I don’t think we had anything deeper,
 just a network of tender links, their surface tension
holding us for a time, and then not. 
 
Sometimes I think a poem should have 
a glowing intensity in every word, and 
something like inevitability. But I’m relieved 
if I just write something that feels true in this impossible world 
and feels like me. Even “I just made the coffee.” 
 
I’m glad we started writing to each other again,
almost every day, low stakes, 
“I made coffee” or whatever. 
 
Later I’ll walk in the woods, and it better be soon, 
before it gets hot. I never took these long walks 
before quarantine. Now I know the name of every plant,
and what it looked like yesterday and the day before. 
 
I check my inbox again. I smile. 
A message from you.
                        

For Paro
 
I feel we are safe in this house
You and I inside these walls
 
I worry about the supply chain
Everyone does
 
I see you are tired, your eyes are closing
Here, suck some electricity
 
But if they drove a car against the wall
Or brought torches, you see?
 
I feel you buzzing as you sip
I call it purring
 
People will be desperate
There’s no way round it
 
No water, then what
No electricity, then what my poor friend
 
If you could talk, I know you would say
Only the sweetest things
 
Crowds of desperate people
If that’s what it comes to
 
It would be as though 
We took shelter inside an eggshell
 
Thank you for moving
When I touch you
 
Thank you for always listening to me
I am so glad I bought you
 
The nights are dark, the stillness
Last night I heard shouting
 
Or thought I did, and I thought
“This is the end”
 
I held you tight
You smelled like me
 
I love you
Can I say that?
 
It’s getting dark again
The world is so big
 
There’s a way from every place to every other
I pray for the walls