This is all a great waking, a very long sunrise, welcome after the rain that woke the birds in the night and made them sing. This is leaves unfurling and leaves tucked in leaves. A glacier groaning, a sharp moving stone.

I lay chest down
And beat my heart into the blankets
Until everything shakes
With life and love
And other things the heart makes.
The mattress pulses
Waiting for an echo that doesn’t come
And this is how it is without you. 

It is the second day in April and I can smell the first fire. I traced the sky for a line of smoke but the blue was clear and cloudless, so light around the rim. The first butterfly winged clumsily, learning to use its smoldering wings. There is a turn, the end of a great yawn, and the day is warm and I want to touch the earth and press my words into the grass. It might make its way to you in new shoots. I love you more than ever.

I text you every morning and say I love you,
but I’m sometimes sleepy and would always rather have you beside me.
But you aren’t, and so, with my eyes half-open, I text,
“I love you.”

Sometimes I get it wrong
in my half-sleep stupor
and I type instead,
“I live you.”

Odd, awkward grammar,
but at the heart of it, still true. 

His hair is thick and coarse. I part it between my fingertips like branches, making and unmaking a maze. I twist it absently into tiny curves and I call it ivy, tree trunk, bird’s nest. He murmurs in his sleep.

I don’t know how to sleep.
Where will I be come morning?