Last Poem for James
In an old knapsack I found
the first polaroid—you, shirtless with poetry scrawled
across your rib cage; me, smiling
with jasmine and daisies in my hair.
This is when we climbed trees and rode bicycles
and you juggled in the park.
When you left me old baseballs,
scraps of Margaret Atwood poems
kissing the seams.
We got in my beat up Chrysler and drove
across the country. We held each other
in front of burning farm houses,
helpless and overcome.
In our first house you brought me
twelve loaves of bread you pulled
from the dumpster on the corner.
You said: This is how I love you,
and littered our tables with found objects—
broken bottle caps and milk jugs and pieces of sheet metal
you wanted so desperately to make into art.
But you were no artist, and I was too frantic to see it,
so they just collected, bit by bit,
until we had nowhere to eat.
The roses were dead.
I put on my winter boots and stood
on the front walk. We screamed and screamed
about anarchy and broken bicycles
until the neighbors eventually grew tired and ignored us.
The snow piled up on the plum tree
and I knew you had to leave.
We were only mouthing words at each other, then,
silences we could fill with good intentions.
We were crafting spells without knowing
what they could do—without the proper incantations,
proper spell books.
We conjured ghosts.