Is it true                                          that grasses
grow                                                  forever.            
                 Is it true                                    that stalks 
remember                                        the hands            
                 that touch                                       them, that       
their roots will                               drink and 
                 drink                                                from soil           
as though                                         the water            
                 would never                                  end.                
Is it true                                            that the man           
                 I once knew                                  who touched           
grasses                                              like girls            
                 split stalks                                      with his            
teeth                                                  that he               
                 made even                                  grasses                
weep.                                                I remember            
                 his lips                                           against             
my own                                            so cold 
                 like we could                                 keep
every secret                                    secret. 
                 If we were                                      like 
stalks                                                sliced
                 at the root.                                     If we                 
could have                                       been        
                 anything                                         better. 

Greenwood

You will drive past the grave—

                                                                past dogs, neighbors, moss

                              slick on oak, all the missing birds between 
                              boughs, shadowed figures lurking, treading 

                                                              empty. How

I will watch you from the window seat 
while the rain is still forecasted to fall 

                              in curtains, lovely 

                                                              as queen’s lace in winter. I discovered

                              so unsettling. How I still see living 

                                                              as I covered myself, roped thick around me, soaked 
                                                              in rainfall, sweat 

                              as you linger in liquid 

                                                              a mosquito. A bed of mosquitoes 

lingering too long by the fence 

                              and nobody watching. Nobody watching

                                                              mosquitoes—

to guard a grave that darkens 
by day and darker by night

                              transforms into an endless tank of bulbous 
                              white 

                                                              splayed across a windshield, smeared 
                                                              wings, tires

                              turning faster, faster along the road 
                              of uneven streetlights, radio whispers 

                                                              to a passenger seat. I saw

                              watching me—

                                                              I saw you watching me—

                              scars in the night, invisible pain, a lonesome 
                              voice cajoling a fracturing night 

air suspending heavy in the lungs, halting—

                              lurching. To a stop 

                                                               that was never my doing. Never my doing. Never—

                              anything that I know: how the air shifts upon a lie, 
                              how everything decimates itself in time, how a hand
                              resembles a hand under headlights, how 

much blood will grace these roads—

                                                              how little we both did in knowing.