When you moved to Vermont I called to say happy birthday
three months late, then stuck nineteen of your eyelashes into a cupcake
and blew them out over the phoneline so you could listen to the sound
of me taking your breath away. Maybe I’m not in love with you anymore,
but I’m still in love with thinking about you. It’s typhoon season now
and every breeze blows your voice across the interstate
as if miles away, someone is talking to you over coffee in a diner
with rain pouring down the windows into gutters.
Driving across North Dakota, my heart made a truce with my brain.
As the cans of baked beans rattled in the back of the truck,
my heart promised to stop fucking my brain over.
I don’t know what my brain promised my heart,
but I know it wasn’t you.
If trees could hang themselves from their own branches,
then maybe it would be possible for my thoughts about your mouth
to hang themselves from the base of my brainstem.
I wish I had more rope to get the job done.
Two weeks before you left for Vermont, a letter arrived in the mail
talking about how all your dreams involved people holding hands,
and wouldn’t it be wonderful if I showed up in one of them sometime.
Now, I sit on my palms every night before I go to sleep
so they won’t find their way to yours in someone else’s dream.
Waking up on a hilltop in Virginia, I found myself to be exactly
145 degrees north of your left leg.
Yesterday your middle finger was 360 degrees from mine.
I don’t know when I’ll stop thinking about the degrees of separation
between us, but I hope to God I’ll never get down to 0.
My inner compass couldn’t handle the closeness.