I don't love you. In the sunshine. When it hits the falling leaves. Like glass. When either way it goes the light spills and shakes to shuddering. False fading memories. And everything we chase, spins. There's nothing left to fill our pockets. Not the crunch of the turing season. Not the dull blunt end of the ice yet to form. Skating us through the winter months. Not that. No.

Dear ---,

This morning there was a black moth sleeping on the downspout of the faucet in the kitchen sink. The tree in the corner of the back yard is turning harvest moon and blood. And there are too many leaves to rake. Without you.

Love your,

Imogen.

I don't write this letter. I don't seal up its edges and mail it down the street or out of country or pen the names into words and breath and memory. I only sign the moments into actions. Drink this coffee. Fold these sheets. Pull up weeds and tomato plants. And walk the dogs. I sit for long hours with the cat you hate on my lap and think about you sleeping. Here. There. Anywhere. I'm not even sure how the rest of this goes. There aren't letters or poems or tragedies at hand. Only babies without names. And plans that will be made as they go.

Dear ---.

I have emptied the dishwasher.

x

In this half-hour, between then and now, I dream of you. Cold coffee. Finger tips. All our love like bats wings. Things, semi-permanent. These days. These running hours. I am not you. Or her. I read poetry from the top of mountains. That is to say down. And distant. If Neruda tried to rise from the page. Paz attempts to cleave the page and tumble me down. No. no. There's no words that could make me go. I am measured. And steady on. I am not a half-hour, in between. Anything. I am the you that makes me stand. Up at the top of the hill where the street lamp flickers and the dogs howl and the chain link fencing clinks. And there are real fears. Real disasters to cling to. Real heights to fall from.