Dawn Pulls Forward with Nothing Dead Enough to Hold It

& nobody has to lose something    to gain something else. Didn’t you hear    this one?    I caught

             your face in the street’s glow & the moment cracked             into syllables, slipping

through my fingers        like droplets. All of it             was styrofoam.        The cyclical sound

                         of bubble wrapped seasons. Plastered             three times over & there,

    inside of it, the splinters       of my winter.              Silver lidded & waiting the whole evening

for a message in the yard.        A sunlit sign to keep the hours        rolling & it was more

            than the condensed scene.         Action deconstructed into the image of girl

& car       & girl & bike       & girl & girl & language with enough room left         to let in

                    the quiet.     To leave its own space         in the driveway.         You had to know

what it was.         I touched anything I could get my hands on           just to mask the stillness.

                    Another way of losing motion          & how I needed everything to be seen outside

of myself.          I am telling you—     all of this happened.           The gold cab glossed with freeze

                    & all December I shook with it.       Replaying the cab. The orange burnt       season

& the way you looked     molded from it. Distance     knew my face like a track & I let it.     Tore

     the ground over & replaced the grass         with endings. I couldn’t go back.        I understood

                    this. Like the plum tree springing apart        in the backyard.        The paint chipping

from my sister’s wheelbarrow             in the garage. I walked       like I could find you

         on the other side of it. Anything clustered,      colored together in the light.      A minute of

sight in my palms         & I didn’t know how         to let it rest