Melissa Cundieff-Pexa
Dear X,
You and I divide in secret
like zygotes. Outside my window,
forsythia beg to catch a fledgling’s drop.
Their yellow buds poke the air with hurt,
and God exits their faces
with hurt sighs.
X,
Sometimes, even God wants to say yes
before he says no.
Darling X,
I remember it this way:
Light hardened
to bone and spread our bodies
across the landscape. Pines
and ghosts welcomed us
to their winter’s stage. Even the air
smoked, unfiltered. Black
calcified branches seduced
into crossing the sky’s cold.
Every tree there, giant-tall,
gazed through us
where we walked as invisibles
down the stone altars and ruinous stairs.
Oh X:
I would have taken my clothes off then
if you had asked me to. I would
have done almost anything for you.
And for the place, maybe, itself.
I would have even said yes
to being a ghost
if it had meant staying there, if it had meant
walking through walls
of light rigid with desire and haunting’s
old pleasure: to outlive a moment
by not leaving it.