the accidental tourist

i am guessing your phone was in your pocket when you called me now.

it took me a moment to realise you weren't going to speak to me, that you didn't know i was there.

you were instead in the middle of teaching a class, or playing a game, i can't be certain which.

but i could hear screaming kids and your voice sounded gruff like you were in character. perhaps you were a troll or a monster.

i wasn't on the line long.

but loved hearing this fragment of you unaware.
i'd never otherwise have been able to be there.

Stung

I found you dead
in the middle of the road
and I risked my own life
to try and save yours,
move you to safety
to die in peace,
in one piece.

I didn't stay to watch,
I didn't feel brave enough.
We never do.
Not even the toughest ones do.

I felt stung by you.

By Heart

I took
deep long breaths of you
before I opened you up,
as though you were something delicious
and I wasn't hungry
enough to devour you.
I could feel your weight
in my hands as I held you,
your perfect folds willing,
you opened up
to me and me to you-
my sweet love letter
in an envelope
marked by hand.

A Farther Father

My boyfriend's father is dying
and I hate myself when I comfort him,
hate the sound of my voice,
hate that I am in the room. I want
to remove myself entirely from this position-
from here I cannot help
either of them.

My boyfriend's father is dying
and I relate to him
in all the wrong ways:
a childhood rabbit being eaten by a fox,
the days I kept vigil by the phone
waiting for news of my sister giving birth,
a grandmother hitting her head on the slope
and never waking up—

back then my own father made the call
and woke me up from an intense dream I was
having in a different time zone, and so for days
I thought the terrible news imagined.

(Whenever my thoughts become critical
of my father, I think about this phone call
and how difficult it must have been
for him to make.)

My boyfriend's father is dying
and for months I wanted the news
to be better. When his father was well
there would be an outing
planned for him and me
to meet, and so I waited for the call
to hear of a recovery, of more
energy, and an upward turn I thought
was on the cards. The call
to pretty myself, and spend
too much time only wanting
to make my boyfriend proud.

A good impression would be great.

My boyfriend's father is dying
and my boyfriend is too brave,
too strong, you would never detect anything
was wrong, so kind you'd think
he needed nothing
more from life than what he has.

At night his dreams are black
I wipe his brow
I rub his back
I kiss his neck
I wipe his brow
His dreams are black.

My boyfriend's father is dying
and I do these tiny things
because I can't bring him back.

All I Never Found

I was wrong
when all those nights
I lay hours with my eyes
too well adjusted
to the darkened room
thinking of myself
as impatient. Thinking

it is true that I am anxious
to find all I have never found –
but happiest yet I am
in the dream and design
of the moments before I do. Eventually

inside I am, I am
inside these enactments I hum
silently like a prayer
I am in no hurry to realise
I will answer on my own. Eventually

In the morning
I am not the same
I like to think
I am, but I am not.