There are correlations

between how far you have fallen in love
and how many cars will try to hit her

between the frequency with which you check your phone
and the number of bears in the woods where she walks her dog

between how primal is your lovemaking
and how steadfast are her stalkers

between the clarity of her face on your closed eyes
and the likelihood her basement wiring is faulty

So when our passion faded
it was replaced with the relief
that you
would be
finally
safe

But still today
there are moments
that clutch me by the heart
when I fear just a little for your life

Amy Lister is
ninety percent granola
ten percent sunshine

Joseph Cumming is
six parts concrete, three parts smile
one part jackrabbit

Amy is a dance
and a painting, and a song
and a space to play

Joe is a ladder
and some duct tape, and a plan
and a prank phone call

Two universes
each their own laws of physics
each their own orbits

What unruly joy
to find in love entangled
such friends, such old souls.

to say that everyone has a poem in them
is a misunderstanding
of poems and people

some tears are poems
and so are some sweaty underarms
and the slow red trickle of a papercut
can recite as violently as a cumshot

some tears are poems
and so are some streams of piss
and hard won movements of the bowel
dug out with slick fingers and dry resignation

some tears are poems
but some are just
salt and hot water
licking a wound of cheek

but
to say that everyone has a poem in them
is a misunderstanding
of poems and people

it is to say
every child is born loaded with a single round of laughter

You fall into my arms
a victim of inertia
a corner taken too quickly
crazy bus driver

My skin startling against your skin
my eyes watering
with shock and longing
recognition and sadness

Because I'm already caught
already creating a fairy tale
with another princess
whose eyes were once
as your eyes are now

So let me help you stand up
smile politely
laugh at the awkward moment
witnessed by strangers
holding on for
dear life

Let's pretend we have not,
in this tiny atom of time,
created and destroyed
a universe of love

It doesn't matter how late I wake now
it always feels like mourning
and the bedside table is afraid to ask where you've gone

How can I tell the orange loveseat
that you will never return,
the wounded heroine,
to rest your bike against his arms
and fall into mine?

And the bed is always waiting
the bed is always too clean
and when I am in it
I am only fishing for sleep without bait
and I am never enough to make it forget
the thick smile that was the curve of your hip
the depressions that were your trembling knees and elbows
the warm damp blossoms that used to paint the sheets
the salt-stained pillows, fossilized evidence of a crying I never understood

We all thought you were coming back
as soon as he went away
but on the day before he left
you told me at eleven
that you would be his at three
and by one I was fetal in the grass
outside your mother's house
and the only time I wanted it,
this fucking town wouldn't rain on me

Go to him
go to him, I'll be fine
but my green couch refuses to talk to me
just stares out the sliding glass door
where you,
sweet woman,
used to appear

I will see you in December

until then, what I'll remember most
about that King Street phone booth is
not the full-blooded crush of your lips,
not the thudding of your heart against its bars,
but the vision of my hands
steepled between us
and the criss-crossed rubbing of your palms
against my kindling fingers

trying to start a fire

I forget what you wore
maybe overalls
maybe the sweater I eventually ruined
it doesn't matter now

I remember the plastic honey bear you emptied in your tea
the clink of your spoon against the cup
the slow lick of your fingers tasting my hands
how we hunched into each others' voices
across the teetering table you steadied with
three
sugar
packets

What I would give
to have that moment over,
when you asked if what I felt for you
included lust

I would give back every letter,
every phone call,
every way we met and every way we parted,
to be with you again
on that foul night in Kingston
to take back

that No

I am rubbing my nose a lot this morning

your smell is on my fingers
your soap and skin and inside
is the musky memory of being
wasted and basted in you,
realizing that all these years
my mouth has been a cup

waiting for the drip
of your tongue.

The scar on my arm
didn't go away
from the time that you
tossed your cat onto the bed
and me.

Playful
best of intentions
and I like your cat
and he even likes me
sometimes.

Airborne
lives flashing before his slivered eyes
the unrequited feline
claws out
determined
to cling to this
or make sure
that nobody
comes out
unscathed.

Winter stark
the naked hedge
twitters
with the thin invisible shells of sparrows

Stare at a single branch
stare
stare
and there:

a bud
becomes an eye
a twig
a leg
a feathery apparition
now one of hundreds

Reach in
shake the hedge

whoosh
Spontaneous combustion
of a million birds
their bodies becoming vapour
their peace becoming panic
a smoky wisp of flock
dissolving into the white sky

Cruel

Inevitable

Watching them go I understand
how it must've felt
to have your hands
tangled
in the branches of my heart