Monday, March 15, 2010

Springfield

Some days I think I know Abraham Lincoln
better than I knew my own father, and you too

have grown up with your dad halfway
across the planet, but Lincoln

just around the corner, his home
wide open for visitors,

so when I sit across from you
at that Thai place and you ask about him

for the first time, I don't know
which facts to spout off: my history

or the story of this city. You've just written
a musical where the heroine is fatherless,

and though I don't know this, I slip
into her skin and tell you everything

I can remember: his leather jacket,
the blues he listened to while he

choked on carbon monoxide,
the long time after when I wouldn't

take off his watch. This
is the point where you fall

in love with me. I fall
when you say you'd use the word

shit in a Good Friday sermon,
if you ever gave one. And again,

when we run to the cornfield
during the January storm,

and you brush the wet hair from my forehead
before leaning in. And again when I

snake my hands from your shoulders
to your chest, mapping out the way

to get inside you.

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