#valley
We play most of our games
in June. Feet pressed against
the edges of a salt slot canyon, corn hole,
teasing amber smoke across the wet ground
of a 1 am rain storm when the sky forgets
the concept of loyalty. It calls me on the glance.
Says don’t be afraid of seeing me split.
Our first time, I was afraid to open my eyes
fully and I think he was too.
The moving body often wants to dig
through space without knowing its confines.
Light cracks bruised apricot
once the eyes unlatch,
unfasten upon human lines.
To understand that we are whole
is a bedroom illusion that shakes
only within a salt slanted ceiling.
This is a city of geographical
boundaries—ash hazel mountains
and snow tops that withhold melting,
beg stay in a voice that reminds
me of my first boyfriend and why
it took so long for me to leave him
even though I knew of the time.
Moss is flowerless because it lacks
desire, doesn’t want to be held
to anything. Yet, roots are the derivations
of all wanting, the string
with which we can’t help but hold
ourselves to another: fingers, smoke,
sex, home, the light purple
of a bruised back bone.
In this binding, there is a constant reproduction
of a capsule of apricot light
by which I mean to say
that despite the rules of botany,
and how low and green the carpet,
I loved him before
I wanted him and I wish
I had told him then,
before the summer untangled its moss
wrist, opened and begged: look away,
I’m splitting.