Splash Line

This is the juice of a lime,

the juice of an hour. I understand

most fabric after discarding. I’m

a difficult shirt-sleeve. She likes

a metronome; I have

a grocery egg, the patterns on this

dress, the pleated light. Clouds move

but they’re all cut from the same

grief. Breathe anything.

That Longing

Lost diamond, your sticky shoes.

All the boardwalks we didn’t know

cost money. Every jangling key,

every displaced person sleeping in

my lunch hour. Every Madagascar

radioing its frantic smells. Every

rodeo. I’ll have to pull the hospital

curtain around my sewing-basket.

All the bargain-basement unicorns,

silver capes, last-minute folding of

programs. This walk I’m practicing?

1980s all over it. I only know one

telephone pole, so I guess I’ll go with

that longing.