43

or, to ask over dinner what love might be, expecting nothing.
is that even possible? holding no expectation
as a means of not being crushed by what is, to not be crushed,
keep running with those small blinders or a tamed horse.

before your reading, we spoke of a poetics of an open field,
how the shape of a word moves us somewhere, how far, how together
such a listening might create some somewhere.

less me, more you; less waiting, more wanting; more grasses, more mouths
wet with the morning; less mourning, more losing; less holding, more opening

a door; the the wooden doorstops it took months to buy
from the artist who kept apologizing and calling me angel.
the engraving reads: what words could keep the door open?