Good Failure

We disappoint each other like a key

disappoints a lock. I thought I was

unturnable, I thought I loved

biking home with no lights

straight down like how your

hand sometimes presses flat

on my ribs. I feel a thrill like

when it used to rain so hard

I could hear my heart beating

outside of myself. Pain is useful

because it comes out of nowhere,

like a girl with dark eyes passing

me in the park. I used to ask strangers

if they had something to tell me––

if they were sent for some reason.

I have the hardest time believing

in a disordered universe. That’s not

the kind of God I’d be. I’d be the

shadow which pulls the bells in Spain;

I’d be a magnet sunk to the bottom of

the ocean. You’d know me for my

slight tug at the vowels of the singer

downtown, for when a summer dress

suddenly falls from its hanger. I’d be

the god of the things that move me;

I’d be the goosebumps on my arms

when I smell your nearness.

I’d invent something more than

being on your knees, the way an

instrument sometimes finds itself

a deeper note. I’d leave no sorrow

unfinished. I’d be like I am now:

spitting cherry seeds into my palm

all the windows open as if a sad song––

leaving your house and the air

is simply the bluest, softest shadow

of heart ache. I thought of licking

the edges of an ice cream sandwich

back when it was summer. I will miss

the sweetness. I will think of you

when my teacher says that the novel

is not a disappointment when it fails:

it is an education of desire.

It shows us how to want.

This is April. It is the very last

dark drop of something good.

You fail me. I want you more

and inconceivably more.