You walk ahead of me in my mind
like I’m watching TV now as an adult
from within an old New Jersey motorhome,
that plot and wheels gone from my grandparents
for a basement more affordable.
The robins replace you this evening
and I haven’t seen
them in a long time. I don’t know
where they go during the snowfall,
but the sparrows were still around:
the pictures of us we had printed
were like expired stamps pasted
across my palms until I was hidden
like a robin. I haven’t seen the sun
so bare like today. The grass plains
are the tired skin of a leopard,
dragging while it stays prostrate,
bundled behind it like a run.
The acorns and pinecones
and the shadows of those walking
near me make up its misshapen spots.
It grew tired of excitement
and sleeps through this Spring evening:
nothing good on TV anymore.
The stamps are falling off my palms
like bark tossed by the blades of maturing lovers.
And I don’t know the moon either,
far away and behind my blinds.
Is it headlights or a broken siren,
or the floodlight on a helicopter
with you to be with me tonight,
with letters free of stamps
you’ll give to me before we say goodnight?
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