The river here yawns marshes into the forest where
the poplars push so emphatically into the sky and, through
the spike pods of the jimsonweed, the almost-breeze
reminds me how to miss you. The ache is thin

and everywhere. It papercuts each stride I take down this
trail. A lady in pink velour is raving at her dog like it could
agree with her, like it could cheer on her bristling. I know
you would laugh if you could. You would spread tin-pitch

through the evening and scare the nesting starlings. So let this be
that. Birds, please go a-flutter. Tell the horizon about who
is not here, what is not here, what slips so quick the dusk gives
up trying to find it. You have so many wings and all I have

are words and they can not get high enough to clear the branches,
to escape the poplars and their forgetful shadows. Please,
if you can, fill the distance for a few seconds with something
other than distance.