Love, the dogwoods are fish shaking loose
their pale scales.
I like it when you’re not here
so I can tell you what you’re missing:
a skein of black dirt stretched
like lace across the kitchen floor
and through the windows
two birds tussling in a sea of felled petals.
The river was once a place for me
to drown myself, tying to my ankles
the weight of what I’d lost, then jumping in:
Tensaw, Paint Rock, Coosa, Sipsey,
Cahaba, Mobile, Chattahoochee, Pea.
Nothing could have stopped me
from my own agreement with regret.
Now the river is for showing me
the uselessness of sharp edges,
how each thing that curves away
is not a body resisting but a pleasure
waiting to be reciprocated.
When you come home, there’s nothing
that won’t be waiting for you.
