In spite of my desire to,
I will not be creating imagery that evokes your mother, the Ozarks.
I will not be referring to any geographical features as mothers.
I will not be making any metaphors about rivers,
Or folk music or birdwatching or meteor showers.
There will be no hyperboles or outright lies.
Your muscles will not swim under your skin.
Your eyes will not be rainbow trout going upstream,
The couch no reservoir. Your body will not glow.
I will not be doing research about biblical women and how they lived
In order to couch a modern narrative in ancient perspectives.
No poem of you as John the Baptist or me as Mary Magdalene.
I will not describe emotional vulnerability as simmering,
Or as an old woman summering in Vermont.
I won’t even begin to fuck with form.
No aubade for your time in the asylum,
No sonnet where you graduate and become a bird.
Still, light slips in
Call it a turn-
And oh! There you are, in the doorway, again!
Grinning! And with a new bird feeder hanging from your hand,
Like a lantern blooming into the dim living room.
Well shit. I can’t help myself. Hello, darling.
I guess what I really want to write isn’t a poem at all,
But just the chance, once more, to see you.
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