Discretionary Love

it’s the first dream i’ve had of him in 199 days and in it, he forgets which isn’t half as good as an apology but

Name of person: you. Nature of bond: the form has no box for this. Duration: one summer, three monsoons, seven unfinished conversations, and one afternoon

It has been three months since we flopped around exclusivity– the day before Thanksgiving, rain beating against windshield in front of Station, Liberty Ave’s latest

Who is made of autobiography, in which I write           in one small place. The wounds of trinity narrowed, shrank. The bottle-capped word of pain because

You became the person my mind reached for first. Before happiness settled, before anger cooled, before heartbreaks found language, before I could even understand what

we agreed  was a better word than Odd we practiced  times-tables more certain than time itself than SPAM doubling as grainy crumbs of meatloaf we

It is raining in the nursery rhyme of my front yard where two fawns and a doe have paused for the mounded hosta leaves pouring

It always takes abundance, to make isolation apparent. The cafes are crowded, my inbox is full, calendars fill to the brim then empty like a

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if your eyes chose to see what I carry in this bag of memories where I hide the

I wear a hair shirt   coarse strands scratch  my nipple   my belly streaked in blood channels to the dead   stinking gullies where 

At the time, it was no small matter, the manner of your departure. A key was sitting on the kitchen table. Looking out the window

They sit at a small table at the station, where they can barely contain their grief at returning home. The train is coming at 2:45,