WHEN I’M NOT TEACHING

It’s a miracle, every year, that the sun is capable of making us warm:

 you never taught me to make daisy-chains

but I learned from watching your hands anyways. R looked

at the one hanging from my rearview 

and asked, fairieland? and it was true enough to say yes. I learned

from you, how to make that small and necessary wound in each stem. I learned

when to forgive and when to keep a grudge

 as a thorn beneath my tongue. I’m learning to be softer

with my words, I’m learning when I should curl my hands into fists. Spend enough

time in a fight and it’s natural to bay for blood. Spend enough 

time with my tongue prying against your teeth and it’s 

a rite, unstoppable once begun. Stop — it’s the dreaming season and I haven’t forgotten

 that I love you for months. Stop — this break shouldn’t be calculated

in money lost while I get by on what I have. Isn’t it nice

to be well-rested? Isn’t that the luxury of time? The Bushism rings true: three jobs 

is distinctly American, fantastic, even. Yet I lie in the grass. I write

my stories, these poems, which are always

just letters to you. I dream of more sabbaticals. I dream

of fitting these words around a life. I dream of 

rising with you, even when it’s early, I dream we take different buses to work.

I dream of labor, I do, I’m ashamed to admit. But I also dream of you.

ARROW STRAIGHT / STILL RUNS

After Richard Hugo

Dream. I dream of you. The 

worst hope I can imagine is you in the car

and we’re getting away. The worst hope I can imagine is you choose to be brave. That

thing you said, you can’t love me anymore but you’ll pray. You brought

it to the old-ninety truck stop. That worst hope. Muzak playing. Showers in the back. You

hate Taco Bell but it’s the only thing for miles, so you stand in line here

with me and that worst hope, that dream. You asked God to fix you so He did. Stand still,

call your sister until she picks you up. That dream, that worst hope, the one who runs.