you always hated gaps in information --
the “intangible,” you muttered --
huddled there, numbers and figures cascading into
dances you could touch, mapping (starless) constellations

but what if i showed you

those abstract beings you so abhor
shapeless fancies, nameless feelings?

what if i told you
the best air resides at lakeside 6 am
not in the cramped quarters of study hall

that ecstasy isn’t grade As and strained smiles
it spreads among brisk walks and hot meals (on cold days) and
catching your breath by that shop you used to frequent
your feverish exhalations fogging up the atmosphere

that spontaneity isn’t a quick coffee break
it’s the light of your fingertips on that old piano on 44th street
you played on a (baseless) whimsy
and how that sound still resonates, still echoes
in somewhereland

that the best days of our lives
aren’t journal entries on definitive lined paper;
hyperbolic dissertations with exclamation points in all the right places
it’s a tingle in the small of your spine and the lump
in the base of your throat, threatening to cave in

that memory is an unjustifiable lover,
her victims lay in heaps of impalpable debris, yearning
for things that cannot be held.
it’s not a sepia-toned photograph and a worn-out letter
it’s a work of fiction, a (fleeting) moment
that we try to grab with two hands, the seams overfilling through
the spaces between our fingers

what if I told you
that all this pain
and all this joy
can’t be typed up in a 500-word paragraph
12 pt font, 1 inch margins, do not exceed word limit, please.

that these longings and itchings and lovings –
these gaps of information, the untouchable things –
are real, and they matter, and maybe if you really tried
you could see that the moon looks so much more lovely
rising over sleepy towns than it looks on your astronomy report