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Consider the sparrows fly-falling heavy from seed and full
Consider the seed just-planted and already a part of the exchange that dirt makes
with April birds
Consider April the way he moves swiftly but without hurry merciless as all spring
Consider spring (the first shapeshifter)
Consider your shape the way you dip your finger in your mouth to rub the paint stains
from your black boots before you wear them out or how you press your whole face
together into your guitar as if squeezing the notes from your head
and through your fingers’ savage pull
letting them drip out until the whole room is sour
Consider this day:
my friend sits in the middle and the two paddles
are crooked. The boat is tinfoil or something
like it. If every day was like today, I think
I’d be the happiest man on earth
See? I can live without you. There’s proof of that.
Consider me: If I was a kind of boat, I’d be this leaking rowboat we took out
for the first time this season. Like me, the boat may capsize in
time, but I’m not ready to go back to shore, so I scoop out the
water until my hands are blue I am ashamed to ask:
what kind of boats
do you like? If I was
the kind of boat that
stayed afloat without filling,
Would you sail next to me?
I think of one day becoming a sailor
The air is thick with pinescent and smoke from distant campfires. Last night,
My friend and I made a fire and roasted marshmallows until the sugar was brown
and molten, and our heads were light from sweetness and warmth.
I am surrounded by such beauty. If I was a better man,
it would be enough for me. But I can’t help being the kind of man I am:
after the lights went off, I thought of you all night
and woke up with your name on my eyelids.
Consider the laws of physics
the distance between you and me is made of rooms
If I was a map-maker, I would draw a route from my room to yours and
if I was a sailor, I’d sail across the hallways of this city
to find you (but it’s not as simple as that)
Today, I am a linguist and I have a bone to pick with the phrase
to drift apart.
You are not drifting away from me. If you were, I would dive in
to catch you mid-stream (in this version of the story
I am a sailor
and my boat can hold both of us)
What you are is dripping. You leave behind
a trail of wetness, and I can’t catch all of it.
If I were to stop you you would still spill
that’s the way water works
Consider spring, again the way it goes and goes without stopping to wait for us.
If you were a month, you would be April and
if i was a month, I would also be April. It’s okay for us to be alike sometimes
Consider me. I’m heavy like the sparrows heavier than you though you are
a better sailor than me. In some other version of the story
we are both sailors.
In this one, the wind is picking up.
