In Bloom

forgive me, i’m remembering again, the day

we gathered on a rooftop in one short loose circle

around a fire pit & a long story from a friend

of a friend. how a wayward paw locked him out

of his car on a mountain on a day like today,

puffs of air pluming from our winter mouths.

how he might’ve abandoned his vehicle to the wild

exhaust of nature but never his dog. i remember again,

how your air, cancerous & unrepentant, billowed out

staccato, one-two, in a laugh. how i could not see you

& then, like good angle & luck & shadow, i could.

how all the glass in the neighborhood shattered.

how the early wind shifted & rose to meet you.

how throat & swallow i became at the work

the muscles the corners of your eyes devoted

to you. the fine hairs of your life. the winter crack

in your bottom lip. how your body wrought in my favor,

bent in triumphant song, the unruly organ of my chest

sustained only one low long note. when it breaks –

the window, the dog, the friend, forgive me, this I never learned –

you tilt your head towards me & what sudden sound crawls

from your mouth is church. a stack of good books. a hard minister

of lost in my own body. forgive me my puerility & faulty memory.

it’s just i remember i was so full of light

that i was the new & ready conditions of a rooftop garden.

how you watered me. how you kept me

nourished & in bloom.