You used to be more intimidating. She used to be more free. There’s no weapon we aren’t confiscating. Let’s take a sec to breathe. How overwhelming are the first days. Wanted colleagues? You got friends. I wish I was doin it for the pay, cuz I’m invested in how this ends.

It’s contagious, his big grin with all of those teeth. We’ve all been busy what-if-ing missed opportunities. There’s a prince in the north, a cowboy down south. In common they’ve got only my starving mouth. The mama bear startled, on her hind legs, deciding. If guns come through the door he says he’ll go down fighting. She shuffled with one hand through jangling keys. The two cubs were darling, each clung to a tree. Now the battery’s dead or the starter is broke. Her folks called it love but it felt like a yoke.

The curtain of nighttime lowers and I feel your body against mine, sweaty and wet. The stars fall all around and I remember our howling. There were yellow blossoms everywhere in that dark garden in the bright city. Unseen pleasures taken lightly, dewy moist everywhere. Three separate times my entire weight against yours on the rocky ocean shore. Our bodies a landmass. Push, and gravitational pull. Nearly as many years gone by when you came around. In the dark alone now, the safe cloister of night, these dreams.

We must look like close friends to them, we recent colleagues doing our best. They from broken homes and deep poverty, sexed up and addicted, every one a child. We can show them, and they will understand.

You’re aiming for some betterment. She’s fixin for a fight. Take a nap, the Perseids aren’t ‘til the middle of the night. There’s no growth that doesn’t hurt, and plenty pain that won’t see gains. You’ve got dressing on your shirt. He remembered all their names. Whose turn is it to answer? Who’s trying to get paid? I thought I could be teaching but we just gotta keep them safe.

We know the roads in Nawlins are a hate crime. She shared photos from five years ago, but a lifetime. I went and played in the rain because you would’ve wanted to. When it’s not a drill I know now what I’ll do. They gave me all the vegetables complete with garden dirt. It was beautiful between us, that don’t mean it didn’t hurt.

tiny lizards spring from the sills. air thin. heat thick. electric zooms flit wildly. in search of sweets, the hummingbirds. so aggressive. surfaces of thirst and cracked layers. muted browns, sunburnt reds. wobbly convection heating little shrubbery. how deep the aridity. atop the mesa dry air. gusts whipping. twirling dusts. what is god but terrible beauty.

they call it drop. falling after floating. we’re better animals when free, just so. this one left not a whiff for me to smell in his wake. ghosts are all around these days. no trace but ache. somehow not better: a hand-written letter of fresh future promises in brilliant prose. oh, how I fall for them both. couplings superb in both romance and brevity. each its own beautiful terror. just so, these roman candle loves, “and everybody goes, ‘Awww!’”

The moon is super and so are you. Cats come just to say hello. If you’re trying to be teaching please own up when you don’t know. We talked of quitting and commitment. What is future in uncertainty. The baby standing in calm shallows. Her face pure joy just perfectly. A loving helper holds your hand. A startled heron beats a wind. I wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t come from him. Been skint on love of late, I’m grateful for the least. I’m gonna grow whatever I get; we’ll share ourselves a feast.

Remember the night the moon carried you home. In your relief and recovery you ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and crashed so hard. The cows startled you in the early light amid the ponderosa pines. You’d needed carrying because there had been gunshots, and you chose a rough drive up a canyon in fading evening light. No one knew where you were and you had no cell service. Adrenaline fed you’d handled the rocky climb in your agile little car and crested the canyon rim to find the moon waiting, shining white and wide, cut by the horizon. You’d never seen a moon like this one; you finally took a breath. A greeting and an assist, the moon sat directly atop your destination, though in the moment you hadn’t known. How and where to feel safe enough to sleep now. The moon offered and you followed. In the familiar forest where you finally rested, coyotes celebrated not far off, omens of refuge. Cows slept. In the morning you felt better, and probably ate another sandwich, you don’t remember. From that morning you remember only the soft light through slim reddish tree trunks with epic stature, the here and there fussing of cows, birds chattering and singing. Anymore in the memory of that frightful night there exists only the coyotes’ lullaby, and the moon, who carried you home.