You and I could sit for hours, fold a thousand paper boxes;
still so little would fit inside. Only pebbles, feathers, fruit peels,
and the tiny backs of earrings that always go missing in pockets.
Small items, their lightness measured by just how many
you can lose and not notice. Imagine if we tucked
all the stinging things to our chests and rocked them quiet.
In narrow beds, we slept, in some loud place, where
people sing together, and you
were irretrievable, disappearing into the noise around us.
These days, forgetting the uproars and affection overcomes
me, but still I wonder about sound proof rooms, how sharply
I’d yell, and then how softly I’d hold your head in my lap.
At once so familiar and strange, it was not just the seasons that
changed. Summer pleated and froze, and still I do not know
what I should be allowed to condone or care for.