what you could never do

Chinese symbols jump like electric shocks
on bamboo paper, a gift from my father: Victory Fireworks,
Ellsworth, Wisconsin. an arch and a glitter,
like lazy young mothers with their red lips parted.
a government-licensed explosives factory in a cornfield town.

these things are easy: single-digit mornings,
running in skirts, prom without a boy in a tux,
telephone calls, tangles of words on a page,
cheap pizza next to a military graveyard
and a garish violin song.
I was called brave once, by a girl who has made other women bleed
on grassy fields in the blinding sunset and inconvenient wind.
I felt like the white at the edge of mall photographs, like early flowers.

look at me at night.
colored sparks and the midwest shriek in my pupils, both.

I cannot embroider a silver thread of romance,
I cannot read speculations of suicide method when I know the truth,
I cannot leave though I want to and I cannot save you,
could not save you,
though I need to. Blurred vision and stumbling footsteps,
fire between my fingers, alluring smiles,
free falls, and faith:
these things are impossible.

I would see the northern lights, the dirty alleys and orange stands
of the world, my anger would be a broken window
instead of a nail in my leg, I would tear down empires,
I would challenge your fathers and your women and your basements
and your skeletons and your God, I would ask the terrible question,
I would cut open my heart with a surgical strike,
I would fight and fight and fight,
and I would pray for you,
if I were able.

sunday, just before midnight

there's been no war here -
just a gathering of faith,
like blueberries in a basket,
pinpricks on a coffee-stained cross-country map.
I was there when the impossible wrenched itself from the uneven street
and threw itself at us,
I was the camera angle waiting behind borrowed pictures on the news,
I was collapsed and sobbing on an unsanded porch.
for years and years I loved you, sometimes half-hearted,
sometimes fierce and coarse as a brick,
and when we hugged I held you tight.

my hands are stained purple with our faith
like with bruises or wine or blood.
I want to strip the skin from my bones
so I can wash myself clean,
make room in every crevice of me for the memories of you
so when I'm dying with the disease of the future
in one hundred years
I'll still recall the cadence of your smile,
your pale thin hands in the summer heat.

sometimes too late at night,
I feel like I'm drowning in the dirty blackened river water
of our faith, I feel the acid on my tongue
and I fall apart like grains of salt.
I let lime juice fall on the skinned knees of our faith and see if we scream.

we have been tested.
found to be young and still venomous with grief, dangerous,
wrung out and crying,
yet the sky still calm
and the roads still smooth
and the clouds still quick and thin.

and still I remember when we sang as we walked,
peering round corners, clutching absent at our necks,
through the heavy doors of home.