My sister told me today
she keeps a poem I wrote her
on our wall.
I haven’t stepped foot in that house
in ages (months, years, a minute or so)
but I see it
like lovers I miss:
with guilt and a hunger
for gentleness.
I don’t know what my mother will say
to me after she tells me
my hair is too long.
I don’t know what I can
say to her without a
thousand miles between us.
My sister told me today
she keeps a poem I wrote her
before I left.
I don’t remember what I said,
I can’t feel the hands that wrote it
or the heart to leave again.
I couldn’t find it on her wall.