the road on the wall

pulled shut

the sun from your eye

the door is open
like the night outside
I’ll stand to walk

I nearly drowned. I nearly burned.
We were in a train wreck once.
I wouldn’t eat. He gave me the bouquet.

What they call cool,
cooler & cold, although green
under the skin.

First, you should know it’s a dream. I’ve been reading
about her. She sits opposite me
at the table, overlooking the river. Snaggletoothed,

If I came to you when you were old, in pain
adrift, angry, if I came again and again,
bringing the little gifts of flowers, of my flowering

Oh Wednesday, and I gave my coats away. Tied
them in a thick embrace, took them out
the door like a corpse. The old list in the old

I went every few days. Not real woods, but overgrown
estates where people could walk among tangled
rhododendrons that branched and drooped in the shade

Their song is almost painful the way it
penetrates the air—above the haze and
level of the fields a thin line drawn. A

The branch of stream and law entwine
lost rail to the stars and back again
while the dandelion sits on a weed