[An older poem...but I haven't posted in a while. Revising right now. More poems soon.]
It would be better to skirt through ice-strewn snow.
One day, I'll tell you that my heart is an owl,
that I only wish to perch where hollowness
offers close wood on every side.
For now, let me say that sleep is impossible
without knowing if I will hold
your sister's baby come spring
or dice onions with your mother,
our knives singing through the paper
as you gather mismatched chairs
around the dining room table.
I've never been one to stop ticking,
though pretending to nap beside you
was more silence than I knew to ask for.
I never thanked you for playing along
or before you kissed me
that first time on the driveway.
I never apologized for making you
eat vegetarian bacon, though I knew
it tasted like burnt cardboard,
or for not whispering how
beautiful you are on stage.
Tell me how to say these things
without crossing this border we've drawn
between us, arbitrary as lines
on a map. Countries get bombed
over the slightest misstep—
Kosovo nestling too close
to Serbia, the way I now hesitate
to wear the earrings from Pristina
you slipped into my palm on my birthday—
but surely we can be good neighbors,
passing small gifts over the fence:
Here, a lilac branch. Here,
a buckeye. Here, a whistle. Here.
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