Everything unimaginable will happen – and a part of you

stays looking up at the pattern of overlapping branches, an oak

and a fir trading the sky back and forth, your spine pressed

long and aching into the woven crisscross of hammock rope – everything

unimaginable: your parents will die, or worse, turn out

to be unhappy,

the one you do not want to forget will fade until you must burn piles

of what has been to find her ashes. And you will leave home

never to return – a woman’s gentle kiss changing

the shape of your equally feminine mouth until you can speak only

desire, spitting shadows, your tongue so warm it melts

plastic and glass. The backs of men departing

so fascinate, you photograph them with your eyes. Your father used

to say, “how can I miss you if you won’t go away?” And going

has taken time to learn, how to open

your hand first, how to turn sooner, walk into night alone and let

one set of footsteps on gravel, the thickness of stars overhead, fill

the thin cracks of emptiness you notice each time he leaves

and you stay, wearing everything

unimaginable – a silk wedding flag

on fire, a pink sweater ripped while falling

when you were ten, a length of barbed wire

around your throat – everything

happens, like you, winter always

comes again, only the rain is different, whose love

which is not love broke your heart. He (comforting) held

your hand and through your body the storm passed.