So you permit him to walk you home,
Assenting as he hovers at the door,
As if assent were all you had to lock

That night you giggled quietly in your sleep—
Lovely transparent dreamer, I could see
The singed-beige kittens tumbling there again…

A day painted like a child’s room
In bright colours; red pillar box
Where Loomis mailed your pristine letters

Not the abrupt way, frozen
In the one glance of a painter’s frame,
Christ in the doorway pointing, Matthew’s face

A valedictory hand swims up
Through metal as I grasp it, then the glare
Of summer spills like lacquer on the floor.

That summer I learned Biblical Hebrew
with Christian women heaving themselves
toward ministry one brick building at a time.

As a girl, that’s how you made it
to first base. You didn’t kiss,
you were kissed.

Morning walking is like a hospital room
The getting up and feeling sorry for sleep
Putting my fat body into a cab and going to the hospital

When I hear sweet songs I think of you
I don’t know why, but I do
When I hear sweet songs I think of you

I am sorry I let you down
I was writing this poem
In the middle of everything