Tender Impossibility

I’m sleeping next to you in the dim

morning light that flicks your skin

like little matches.

You awake a forest fire in my lungs

as you breathe oxygen into me.

I don’t tell you, but in a dream,

I’m sleeping next to you

in the alarm clock glow,

and you wake to tell me that you only want me.

I’m all yours. You wrap your ankles

around the backs of my legs

and I don’t remember if I was dreaming.

Your name wakes me up like caffeine

and tells me that today there will be no rain.

You bake my bones golden in your warmth

and uncage the canary in my chest

so it sings and dances at dawn.

I’m scared to say these things out loud

as if they will suddenly become untrue.

Birds wings flash,

and they chirp at dawn that this feels right.

Tender impossibility.

I hear your name in line at the coffee shop

and on the shore at first light. Your name

like a signal in the night. You are my ammunition

and my weakened knee. Your name like seeds

pushing roots deep into soil and sprouts

into the fresh, salty air.  

For once, let me be right.

Let the birds coo

in delight as the sun pierces foggy air

singing, “Yes, this is true.”

Plaster it across the billboard

or scream it in the night.

Girl, you are right. You are right.

March 2024