Watermark

I count to three and grin.

You smile and let me in.

We sit and watch the wall you painted purple.

Speech will spill on space.

Our little cups of grace.

But pauses rattle on about the way that you cut the snow-fence,

braved the blood,

the metal of those hearts that you always end up pressing your tongue to.

How your body still remembers things you told it to forget.

How those furious affections followed you.

I've got this store-bought way of saying I'm okay,

and you learned how to cry in total silence.

We're talented and bright.

We're lonely and uptight.

We've found some lovely ways to disappoint,

but the airport's always almost empty this time of the year,

so let's go play on a baggage carousel.

Set our watches forward like we're just arriving here

from a past we left in a place we knew too well.

(Hold on to the corners of today,

and we'll fold it up to save until it's needed. Stand still.

Let me scrub that brackish line that you got

when something rose and then receded.