I wish I had told you to stay. Turned the planes

into folded paper and asked to open your mouth.

 

Our wooden tongues paddled in a water world.

I made a jar just for you so I could remember

 

what it felt like to be loved so violently. Throwing rocks

out the window at each other. I tell you to

 

break out the step ladder. We get in a car bound

towards heaven. You take everything—each motion

 

a different kind of handful. I want to learn to not blame you

for what you carried away and what you could not.

 

I hang pictures of yours in my apartment. Have dinner

with your ghost. Think of that café we split

 

a sugar crusted wild berry scone. It was warm in our fingers

and steam told us we would so soon be ghosts to each other.

 

In almost a year I’ll tell you I am searching a different story

from our bodies but it will be past and the rain will freeze

 

and I’ll rummage in the freezer for mixed veggies

to talk to. Let me feed you just this once.

 

Then you come feed me.