I am writing to you from the other side of the country.
You like letters and failed sex,
according to your poetry, if it is true.
Do we always believe in our first books?
I ask before I can even know that.
I want your patience, your beard
the sun over the mountains.
Because I can never be a mountain, never mind
a man. My mother said never trust them,
stop acting like one.
I have been too volatile with the wrong person,
meaning everyone, but I can be graceful
like sunset giving way to sleep.
You are like the last one but better
who was something like the one before but worse
who had a bit of my relatives, the best and worst of all.
You are the most a man has ever reminded me of my mother,
the most patiently adventurous person I know.
I want the mother in you. Let’s drink to that.