I still think about cutting your hair on the porch:

the dull scissors choked with your black hair

 

I still think we could get married one day

 

my yoga teacher says the heart is not an anchor,

it keeps moving forward

 

my therapist asks me to call him by his first name

 

and you stay far away from me

 

the Haida have a myth about the raven

he created a man and he created a woman

he made the sun and he took it away

 

they say he was a trickster

and he did it all for fun

but I know the truth is he was lonely

 

I wonder if you’re lonely

 

I begin to see pennies on the ground everywhere

no one picks them up and I know

it was not luck that brought you to me

 

I guess not every relationship

gets to present its closing arguments,

but the truth is:

I was always a little afraid of you

 

in my dreams, the water keeps rising and rising

and when I wake the water keeps rising and rising

 

and the earthworms come and they come and they come