Apart

Circles have lost their circumferences,

birds fly in their particular trajectories,

the carbon cycle continues

irrelevantly

here,

things are not yet dead, and

I am caught in early autumn’s purgatory.

indecisive—

I am the leaf that’s yet unfallen

even yet ufurled—

I wait.

Hold me again.

Swaddle me in your sake.

Lick, again, the salt that rims my eyes,

Burrow, again, into the divots of my back,

The caves under my arms;

Burrow, again, into sleep into me.

Let us insinuate ourselves into

The rabbit holes that intersect above our heads,

Let us meet for hours in this floating underground;

Let us hibernate the heart until December.

I don’t see circles;

I don’t see birds.

My breath is invisible, until

on a cold day it will suddenly appear

before me,

like cumulous clouds drifting out of my mouth.

(2009)