I will lose you in my sleep.
Chasing fragrant fever dreams,
I find you folded anew in the sheets
when I wake.
I run the lengths
of highways,
California stretches of
asphalt nothing—
I sweat and the tears from my eyes don’t make a
difference—
I think the sun knows that my knees will give
out on mile thirty-nine.
I like it when the sky
opens like a chasm on the upside,
you are the gaping maw and I do
not mind being small in the green, green
grass as
long as I am witness
to the springs here on Earth.
Maybe I will outrun the sky.
And if my joints do split open
on mile thirty-nine,
make it bear witness to
the golden sun.
I will put myself
back into pieces you can identify
if you are willing to
meet me on the other side.
And we are simply
part of two,
whole,
big-small things
turned inside out and back
again.
I cannot compare you to the sun
because of the
way you meld,
the way sunbeams begin inwards
and start in my heaving chest,
right from your fingerprints.
I am dying
a sweet death
because I know this is rebirth.
I think when G-d created light
that there was pain.
An aching,
lovesick pain that brought birth,
through that knee-jerk heart swelling
deep into the canyons and sky so blue
the flash of light that
swallowed the world up at once and brought
it back in one whole piece.
I think Adam and Eve felt shockwaves
when they first opened their eyes
that made their hearts stop.
And for a second,
they felt like they were dying.
There is a flood and I feel as though
I will tear into a million pieces,
and you will put me back together again.