Together
You only like me when you’re drunk
And I only like you when I’m lonely
But when we sleep
Our hands reach like branches
Pulling us up
Past the Brownstones
Soundly together
I’m just going to say it now in
the season of bare branches
Just how I wanted to say it then
In the season of spiders and promises and leaves
You are not the first to not love me
I called that story magical realism (the one with the snow and
the conditions that I read to you while balancing the book
hot tea
and myself in your lap)
Your long face opened and laughed, said:
You think two people in love is magical realism
I looked down
to the right
sloshing hot tea on bare skin
as if to say
How Foolish
How could I have implied that in the snow
your big hands wouldn’t support my spine in the spiraling
flakes?
Your big hands and long face are not the first to not love me
And in the snow
What could be more magical
And more real
Than love
Today
I’m going to sit here
on these rat ridden concrete slabs
in a city that smells like feet
all summer.
waiting for work
and imagine that you are here
Saying those words to me:
Skykomish Snohomish Snoqualmish
And telling me about the Joy you felt
The first time you had a Huckleberry
After leaving the lands of our people
And I’ll tell you about how I didn’t know that Salal
Was the name of a plant and not
All low-lying shrubbery
We can say Kalakala
And talk mountains and
Forget about our exile
The one that brought us happiness
Hay Fever
I
woke up at 5 AM alone
My
face swollen
from every scrap of flora the world over
trying not to be lonely
I know! It's awful, but it's also ok
It's just spring, and I know that myself
and the rest of the known world
want to smell dirty hair
Too warm skin
And be slightly disgusted
And
completely in love
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