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There were equivalencies
in the weightlessness of
their lives together. A

black-capped chickadee
perched on the end of a finger was
as nothing as the
perfect molted skin of water bug, of some sort,
affixed to a dock and as
nothing as a
sheaf of paper
on a hot and
dry day slid to the floor and on which
was written

I don't know how to tell you this

the airiness of migrations
back to the locations of their exaltedness

in pictures, in writings, in memories of
songs and smells, in all the
places and ways
love makes a mark

did they exchange
nothing for something

or the other way around.

Laramie

I always found you were surprisingly
small even for a woman and I
never got used to the small
and soft and firm feel of you near and on
my body standing up, sitting beside me, in bed though I did get

over the desire to feel the feel of you anymore by the
time we went to Laramie the kind of thing I did
to hide my boredom from you
and myself was to plan trips to places we had to
take a Monday or a Friday off to travel to and the

kind of thing you would do is
believe it and look up
things and become interested and
earnest and academic, and you would
tell things to me you learned and buy books and you wanted
to read Hix, you wanted to
read Arnold, that was the kind of thing you did. The kind of thing I did was

claim to be very busy at work, and
tired in the evenings, when in fact I was
ambivalent about you. The kind of thing
you did when I
drank in Laramie was to sit in the hotel chair
frowning at your Blackberry, clicking, periodically
holding it up to the window, the satellites, offering
to the gods
and they sent
us to an AA meeting
which you drove me to out on route 80
and you waited in the car
without comment
while I finished
my dentist appointment, my haircut, my driver's license renewal

for a few years I could always feel your pulse
or my pulse
when I held your hand
through my palm
and it changed my opinion of you when I
thought it was yours those
days I was more likely to
bring your glass of water
to the table with dinner
and touch you
before bed
when we were in Laramie it was
during those years and
I remember your pulse
or my pulse
holding hands
in a restaurant, in the hotel, in the front seat of the car

I always thought you were unreal because
I was unreal and the kind of thing I did was to
test my theories and do various things
to disappear and by the time
we went to Laramie the kind of thing you did was

to read Arnold, and Hix, and
stare at the glow of
your Blackberry from the bed, in the night, next to me, with my
soured alcohol smell, and heavy sleep, and
unattractive gaping mouth, clicking on

facts about Laramie
and meetings
and directions

and what to make sure to see.

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a small glass
apothecary bottle
narrow-necked
recovered, possibly, from the
backyard strata

filled with red potion
of unknown origin
something organic, ripe
squeezed in our fists
or the liquid remains
of where your brush rested
after you painted stroke and stroke
of fire, or bridge, or breath

spilling like our
clear-eyed love
spilling on the linen cloth
that says
just so, just this
and absorbs

indelible stain
part of the fabric.