there

i am worried that all the poems have gone

and now

they reside somewhere you don’t

in the bareness of a page not yet written

an idea not yet materialized

a life that is spent trying to make it seem less trying

and more living

as i did with you

when i did not need to write poems

that made you worried

with what was said

but mostly

wasn’t

*

where do we go

when we do we

which is a convoluted way

to say

i miss you

not the same way a music sheet longs for a piano

but instead wishes for the finger

that can compose the dead back again

including the tree in the wood of the instrument

that strings a forest together if one would

hear the birds chattering too

in a language known by mice

and the worms who will pull maddeningly

to your warmth that was always leaving

to that place that we have gone

like dreams not remembered

forgotten like keys

like childhoods

like you

who preferred green tea

or was it citrus

who was funny

or who wasn’t

who knew that it was certainly love

or who didn’t

for there were places to go

that have gone

that are elsewhere

than here