You said I let you get away
with things
and that’s what can turn kindness bad.
I would apologise,
but love is the soft parts of us.
*
There is a Japanese word to describe
the sense a person has upon meeting
another person that future love between them is inevitable.
This is not the same as love at first sight.
For example,
your smell was never unfamiliar.
*
You noticed
my veins
which are blue and desperate
to find each other.
There is a German word
to describe the blue of veins,
which is also grey metal and green
and the colour of haunted houses.
*
There is a Japanese word meaning
to repair broken pottery with gold.
*
The sky is darkening.
How to explain the sadness
I feel in the dark, which is a sadness
inextricable from the darkness.
A sadness specific to the cold.
Dark-sorrow,
when the bed is an iceberg at sea without you.
*
Of course your preferences present
themselves quietly in the layout
of the kitchen. The few things you placed
are shadowy objects at
the edges of a Renaissance painting,
waiting to catch the light
when I’m weak.
*
There is a Cheyenne word for the act
of preparing your mouth to speak.
When I ready mine now
it tastes like metal,
food is unpleasant to chew.
*
I look at my cactus
and even its refusal to grow alone
is nature’s unwavering bell clanging out
when I’m trying to sleep
in the afternoon.
*
The feeling of remembered love
is so easy to put in the oven and heat up.
It’s your hair I long for
when my hands are empty.
memoryhouse 