Week Four

“Every poem I write falls short in some important way.
But I go on trying to write the one that won’t.”
—Dorianne Laux

Week Four | Every evening I’ve been looking at the moon ever since the quarantine four weeks ago. I don’t say anything. I let it follow me like all the dogs I’ve lost. I drop breadcrumbs, tangerine rinds, peanut shells—all this to draw a trace back to my house in case my scent is different now, less the morning coffee roast that lingers on my sleeves from the cafe, less the scented oil left on my shoulder from an embrace, less the taste of sun on the back of my hand. My clothes smell like rattan and rubbing alcohol now, I’ve watched all the home movies I can carry and sleep with coats of aloe on my chest in case I dream of burnt libraries and childhood barophobia again.

Moon, you one-eyed king—my cyclops: let all lost things find their way home now, let the cupboards be full cans of this and that, may our skin taste like bread again. Let us be good without God and leave him in the rain for doing nothing, never anything.