Does the for lease sign speak of anything
else than the failure of something; just as
the desert required the lake to dry. Each
dark window waiting to be turned yellow
with possibility. Once, you promised
me a cloud hovered so near to the ground
that you overheard its whisper, but in
what dream could that be true? At five am,
night becoming something else again;
sky swaps one mystery for another, the
day waiting to be broken open. Much
of its promise turns to heat and then chills
suddenly, as a lap upon standing
is at once there, substantial enough to
place memories on, but vanished still.
When you painted your freedom, never did
you imagine being left in the reach
around, to push your own stubborn buttons
through their lonely holes; where in a mirror
somewhere, a version of yourself extracts
pearls from the earlobes of its reflection,
before switching off the light. Imagine
your lover without you, say, on a train
one leg crossed over the other, gleaming.
Nobody is confusing the running
tap with the sound of rain, but oh so much
magic; easily fooled by diamonds
skidding the lake’s surface. We now forget  
how quickly the tomato grew, like an
unruly emotion, a flirtation;
but at night, waiting for a shinier
object to surface, learn it is never
really the ice cream that we want, just the
moment of pressing fingertip to glass.