Conundrum 2
Why do moths rub into dust when crushed?
Why do leaves gather in the window well?
Chipped brick pinches them,
just like the homemade splint binds the fingers on your left hand.
They’re connected. But we’ve hurried the healing.
We’ve rushed things, raked the leaves before the rest’ve fallen off.
Our distraction cracked your bones.
In the middle of a role-play you reached for me
and caught your hand in the doorjamb. The door slammed.
I went back to reading alone.
We started eating dinner in front of the television.
You returned to making lists of the chores we’d put off
while trying to burn each other —
That’s not what I meant.
I meant what we did was like stoking a fire.
We were becoming like months to the flame.
Not months — moths. We were becoming like moths to the flame.
Like moths crushed by desire.
It occurs to me, love’s not something —
how to put it…
In the book I’m rereading, there’s this comic;
a man laying in cherry blossoms.
I thought, “That’s not his backyard.”
I thought, “He’s married.” I thought,
“Could he love this other woman more for sharing his fondness
for the fragrant shade of strangers?
“Does it matter leaving leaves in a window well all winter?
If we cut off the splint, could your fingers heal on their own?
“Could any love, even ours, blur the line
between trespassing and the best way to get free of longing’s chokehold?”
