into a sleeping bear, it seems so very ironic to me now,
the rents had been steeping for what must have been
a tea party, so we sat in the grass in the sun
and worried simply: When would we arrive

at the summit of our powers, and where
would the songbirds come from to assist us?      How
would they be procured from the depths of our faces?
Your throat in particular offered plenty of challenges,

the thorn-sharp teeth and the poisonous resin.      And all
in the service of speaking clearly to our neighbors,
though what we were saying was hard to make out.
But like everything we put our minds to

keeping the dream alive wasn’t insurmountable,
though the symbolic language would have to be precise.
I prepared the picnic basket, while you conspired
with the lawnmower gently.      That was the spring

of drinking too much from puddles, and taking
the garbage for rides in the country, my garbage
or your garbage, it didn’t matter whose.      Our tongues
out the window as we scanned the fields of color,

the empty black mailboxes, the rabbits in their coats.
I’ve never felt so filled up with blood as right then,
and you were never more ballerina in a pinch.
The problem was one of foxes and not enough

redness, or too little bewilderment and way too much
ink.      And the tattooed young people, more reckless
than ever.      The snowballs kept throwing even late
into the summer.      I requested an absence

as you drifted into fall—early as I remember.
There were leaves in my trunk, and we ran out
of cream.      You waited in the sandbox when I left
to write your name, returned with a telescope

and licked you on the cheek.      The meadow
never moved from its spot in the kitchen, so we had
the most wonderful view of any and every last bit
of new construction, and a constant airy freshness

as we loafed around the yard.      Most days
we could solve any issue with love—more or less
as dress rehearsal for the feeling right now, the feeling
that something’s gone awry in our hearts,

skipping the record to the sad final track.
But let me put this out there, because I know
you’re full of wonder: In the midst of so much
wrong perception through images of clutter,

my skin remains a bear that we can race
through the forest, or rip apart the mattress
in a dread and soulful moment.       Watch the geese
flying like a wall through outer space.      Birthdays

and philosophy, the homemade ice cream maker.
Go back to the beginning, and include
what you remember.      Then go home
and forget.