He texts me a week later

says “I’ve begun writing again,

feeling again, eating,

Taking an interest in my wellbeing

again”. That is what my love

does sugar tits.

It does not comfort or numb

you. It sets fires just beneath

your skin, turns you shrilling to the night

curling inward towards your heart

Cave. It reminds you of your creative

nature, but I kiss him sweetly

goodbye just to the left of his sharp

lips and send him on his way.

Out through the front gate

into his own unfolding and I am left,

thank god! To be left! To the love that lives

in my body when it is all mine.

I kiss him on his way and then, the speaker

howls and I dance in yellow joy.

And right now

I am okay with that.

I prefer that

and when it is the right time,

He will appear. The universe

knows, for I put my order in a long time

ago and when I smell it leave the kitchen

I will know it is my batch of cookies

and he won’t text

me after a time, thirsty for more

radical self love, fire

belief in art and shiny things-

he will show up that night

at my front door

where earlier, I kissed him goodbye

into a slow dewey morning.

He will show up with book in his left hand, Chopin,

He says “the edges of the tanned pages reminded me

of you, your blonde eyelashes slowly batting

open this morning”

My smile opens like a flower

just for him for I am delighted to see

the universe knocking at my door again today

in the form of a mountainous man.

His armor melts in my redness,

“I adore you, I do. you are not the woman

who buttons my collar

sends me to work- I have been doing my work

all along, welding my my soul in solitude

And I see the calloused corners of your hands,

too.

And then,

When I woke today

And saw your bare feet laced

through mine, I recognized their souls-

you are the woman who’s

footsteps I have wandered next too

in all my lives.

Walk with me, won’t you?

I’ve missed you for

thousands of years.”