April 29 (poem 29)

"things that have made me cry this week"

1. he sang Palisades for the last time;
Jon do you remember when I offered you
my dna and the field in which it grows?
that offer still stands,
but I cannot promise that your children
would be able to maintain perfect pitch
through whiskey the way you can.

2. drifting through the place I used to call home;
it smelled exactly the same as four years ago,
only the names on the doors had rearranged their letters
and the postsecret wall I made was absent.
Emily do you remember dead poets society nights
and how your room always smelled like thai tea
and warmth, how we rafted mattresses together
in the lake of your floor, swallowing goldfish
crackers, chocolate chips, and orange juice?
Remember smearing purple shit into my hair
and how we stained every bathtub and shower
in the building for three whole months?
Meryl do you remember the time I dialed 911
the night I stopped loving the girl whose life
I saved by calling, how you anchored me to the good
dock of your arms as I sank again and again into
all seven seas of your chest?
Gabe do you remember how we played dirty scrabble
and translated everything into braille for your roommate?
Katrina do you remember how you used to stamp
kisses on the envelope of my cheek? It was the first time
I felt like it didn’t matter that I was gay,
you treated me exactly the same, thank you.
Do you remember the day Tea scraped a razor across my scalp
and Liz said, incredulous, that I was still beautiful
and my girlfriend’s silence said the opposite?
She was my first kiss, first fuck, first girlfriend,
and we had nothing in common.

3. the signatures orbiting the photograph of me as a baby.
I am not sure why I think I will miss a community that
made me feel so lonely toward the end.
I noticed when you made mix cds for everyone except me,
how your inside jokes sprouted in the sunlight of the
gatherings I was never invited to,
how I didn’t quite make it into all those photographs you took,
how David was surprised when I told him
I felt like a distant satellite most of the time.

April 24 (poem 24)

“If you are looking for hope”

There is a woman in France who smears salve in the form of
braided strips of fabric
into the chapped lips of the Parisian streets.
Her name is Juliana Santacruz Herrera.

There is a swan in Germany who has spent eight years
in love with a blue tractor,
trailing it as though he has found his red thread,
as though his heart could speak engine
as well as it speaks grit.

Currently there are more libraries in the United States of America
than McDonalds;
sometimes this is the only statistic I can stomach.
I have easily consumed more books
than burgers in my life.

As for you, Swan,
I too have learned to love things that rumble;
our hearts are not so different,
when it comes right down to it.

Last,
Juliana,
I just want you to know
that the potholed road I call my heart could use
some yarn art
to fill its splits and cracks
with softness.