from this side of the world i remember how to live, like you do, in the mountains and the air. each day is a little parcel that you give yourself, wrapped in the ghettoed bark of a willow tree, wrapped in all the breathing we have done. it sits in the nook of your cupped hand, like a bird did once, like you have always remembered it, and, sitting there, we occupy it with thoughts and questions, the things that we think might happen. from this side of the world, i remember green, and the light in eyes when the sun hits the water, and the way that waves just catch you, just let you fly, and then drop you, a tumult, in the sand. from this side of the world, i hear the catch in your voice, the rising sound of your father singing, the way that there are hands from here that stretch out, all of that way, to circumvent this distance and have me stroke your hair. from here, this desk, this dropping night and the blue light it brings, from the way that i can't hear myself breathing, the catching up footprints of the cat on the floor, the voices of birds and mice and roaches, from the way that i am alone and together, the sound of all of this day as it explodes and melts itself into memory, from the cars and the bikes and the people passed this way, the places i have been and you have been together, from the barbed wire fence you once walked in front of, from the way my heart beats and yours does too, from the puddles on the floor and the drip drip drip of the ceiling, the light in the window and the crows at your old rooftop, from the stark white sheets filled with endings and beginnings, from the movement of life, out of this room, down the passageway and the way the old man kept on trying to escape, from here, from all of this, and the way it makes up part of me, from there and us together, there is nothing to say. i have a song in my head and i murmur it to myself. there is nothing to understand but this tiny little hand and the way that you held it, the way it held you.


for jenny and michael and christina.