Poem

I can’t believe you’ll never be

in my body again. You rose in me

like an occasion––I arrived to the door

weaker for your touch than rain is,

more needy than machinery

left out all winter. Your smell made

my heart a humidity, something dark & heavy

with its own atmosphere. I remember

the first time you touched

any part of me: it was my knees.

We were sitting on the curb in

false spring and you put your hands

there. And it made me shy. It made

me think about how it’s entirely

possible that inside of me are

a thousand pale mirrors. I swallowed

April. I put my headphones in your

ears as the subway took its nightly

distances. I kept telling you the truth.

I would have been so happy

if all we did all day

was laugh in the dark.

You were something very wonderful

to hold, something that scared me,

like the one piece in a museum

with a sign that invites you to touch.

I heard recently that it really is

the most unlikely angels that greet us

in death––maybe you’ll be there with

the long consequence of your body and that

perfect, elusive freckle. You’re the

only man in my life who meant

exactly what you meant to me,

so little and so much and so brief.

You kissed my ears. You found my

house key somewhere in your sheets.

And I was the first person on earth

who ever wrote you a poem.