Someone once said this.
Something I've tried to forget.
Or rearrange like Playdough.
Love turns everyone into a poet.
But to define it with various arrangements of the
Same 26 letters is to send the leaves
Condolence cards reading,

“Sorry for the chloroform,”


as they crackled and crunch beneath your toes.
When you can sew the stars together
In a bouquet with a strand of God’s hair,
You may tell me why I melt--
Like a meandering malady--
Into the pores of your skin.
But until then, tell me another folk lore to pass the time between, “you and I” and “us.”

Tell me of how the roots of affection
Fluttered down on her
Like cherry blossoms over
Engraved granite and newly turned soil
And how the vase she waits to arrange roses in
Is deep enough to mourn
Every un-returned scarf that smells of the glass bottle on her vanity.

Tell me of Christmas cookies crunching
At two am
With open Pinot noir,
Because love makes pariahs out of prophets,
And Jesus,
Sin is only
The trembles in his heart when even Lucifer misses the creases of God’s hands.

Tell me one more.
One of 26 letters.
Seven months.
Four years.
One apology.
No rebirth.
Show me why I am a poet.