Take a photo of a barcode or cover
& sometimes it seems
the future has a habit of repeating itself.
named after trees so old
they are only the sounds
we make for them.
I did it
in cursive, because every letter is more
beautiful when touching
the others that make it mean.
knowledge I still
keep with me like memories of being
loved.
like cedar
waxwings that mistook glass
for the space that lives
behind glass.
Still, her
death meant more
to her than any life, for life
is not so permanent
as its reply.
My shadow continues to accompany / me, as if it were my friend and not / ready to thin, dim, double, and depart in the hours I need most to be / reminded I remain.
"I don't like
that my name is a place I haven't been to."
& for one second I feel
the suffering of the dead is more real
than the suffering of the living.
a kind of absence
she seems shaped around.
and I keep a frayed
armchair that holds the shape of
nobody on earth. I have tried to preserve the sense of
beginning.
but the sky is
so hollow it swallows every name.
the future has a habit of repeating itself.
named after trees so old
they are only the sounds
we make for them.
I did it
in cursive, because every letter is more
beautiful when touching
the others that make it mean.
knowledge I still
keep with me like memories of being
loved.
like cedar
waxwings that mistook glass
for the space that lives
behind glass.
Still, her
death meant more
to her than any life, for life
is not so permanent
as its reply.
My shadow continues to accompany / me, as if it were my friend and not / ready to thin, dim, double, and depart in the hours I need most to be / reminded I remain.
"I don't like
that my name is a place I haven't been to."
& for one second I feel
the suffering of the dead is more real
than the suffering of the living.
a kind of absence
she seems shaped around.
and I keep a frayed
armchair that holds the shape of
nobody on earth. I have tried to preserve the sense of
beginning.
but the sky is
so hollow it swallows every name.