Further north under frozen
waters, trout and panfish linger beyond
the shame I will not face in daylight.

We make a point of fitting everything into carry-ons for the convenience, I told him. Only now I could no longer remember what convenience justified.

Soon the sky
fills with people. My grandfather
turns the dial of his American radio
to the prayer of a wordless song

“The healing is a continent
too. It is the tissue

of human faith, the ache
of animal longing. “

“I could not comprehend how love for someone other than me could be called love for me. Love sees only the beloved, I believed. Two faces turned toward each other alone.”

“By noon, we knew the sun was through with us  
and our small adventure. Even the bloodwort,  
the tall red ferns, and the L-O-V-E scored  
in black paint below the overpass could tell  
we knew nothing of them.”

It is just comfort and I am just
thinking. I am always thinking.
There is only so much life

You don’t know what it means to juxtapose, do you, babe? I want this man who I sleep beside to remember
what he did to Emmett’s face with a size 13 foot.