
Two Poems
Mount Pleasant
In the southwest corner, near the plastic
red and white lamps left on the Ukrainian graves,
their translucent hearts beneath the dance of Cyrillic
on moss-covered tombstones,
I sit. On a stone bench, attending to the resonance
of your warble—through static, my headphones,
your words and into me—I miss
putting my hand on your leg
while I’m driving—my thighs growing cold
despite the thaw. I scratch out the draft
with you still on the phone. I like that
your stories
don’t have to mean anything to be beautiful.
I like that hours later I will remind you
of where we were three months ago, and the rivers
that have run through us since—
the beds they’ve made in our bellies, deep enough
to suggest permanence, though eventually
we hang up, or close the window, our calls
unfinished.
Tirage au sort
The whisper of the barbecue. I double-take
when you carry out the compost, cornsilk
spilling from under the steel lid, an anecdote
about your father’s hatchback Tercel
slipping from your soft upper lip. You test
the heat of the element with your palm,
the care of three short inches. Pebbles
under your sneakers, and brick, the dog
following in and out of the kitchen,
in that point after rain where it still sounds
like raining. The green hiss of the leaves,
louder than the song in your throat,
the same one since morning, so low before the scream
of the barbecue. Did I say whisper?
It’s shouting.