forgetting pills and running
back to the house, finally on
the train, a flash to that other
May, my hair always just washed,
Chloe on my wrists and behind my
knees, your favorite blue lace
panties. Today time seems
botched. It couldn’t have been
so many years since I slept against
your back, as many years ago
as your son was old, long enough for
me to have a daughter with
eyes as blue, to haunt me. Maybe
the green reminded me, a wall of it like the
trees I drove through, that moist
avalanche of black emerald and
jade. Or maybe the tea rose leaking
on my skirt made me think
of long hot hazy hours in your
kitchen, in different rooms,
moving toward your mouth. Or
the low pressure, like when the
electricity went out and I
wanted the dark to trap us,
torn trees to block the door. The
elastic is still good in those
lace panties, and my hair is growing
longer, as if it were a flag
I could wave to let you know I’m
in town, as if you were living and
I were coming to you, still high
from a dance class where
when I stretched and warmed up
it was as if for you.