It depends on your definition

I entered her house

While she slept

I changed the floorboards first

One nail per night

I continued

Every bit of architecture

Till the same house

Was a different house

It was a gradual change

She never noticed it

Or maybe she just pretended not to

(She hid impressions behind her hair)

So I started to call during daylight

Working in the awake open

Sometimes I didn't leave at all

My labor was silent and separate

A ghost machine

I painted the whole place

I tossed everything overboard

And bought it all again

I answered her mail

And the door

When my work was done

I watched her bathe

She stared silent, too

In the cooling blank water

Waiting for something

To begin

Or end

V

V was a six foot two red head, born a twin. I knew her when she wandered. She had a high soft voice, like whispering above an airplane engine. She wore caramel lips and a clever smile. At times, she took so long to say hello you were left tilting with your mouth open, falling in to her neck, soft as ferns. She was always crashing relationships into shore, after which she’d pack a bag for elsewhere. Her landlord was a round woman from Naples. When V left with her single suitcase she’d ask,
“When will you return?”
“Who knows, there’s so much to see.”
“Yes my vagabonda.” 

The last time I saw V was without notice or surprise, at a bar in Brooklyn. She’d boarded a bus in Cleveland where she’d taken up work as a grade school teacher. She had a few dollars and wore boots that came to her knees. She asked me where there was dancing. After a drink we walked out into February’s night where she evaporated into the ice.

Happy Birthday

November 4, 2008

Departing Chicago.

The plane is nearly empty. Everyone sits down quickly, immediately orders a drink.

There are ribbons of newspapers, expired information.
What's happening in Virginia? Indiana? Pennsylvania?

Everything is dark. The plane queues for takeoff with a whine. Flight stewards talk about nothing. "When will we know?" "Maybe tonight."

On earth the polls are closing. Above the plane is hermetically sealed. No information enters or leaves. We settle into the sky above Lake Michigan, among satellites blinking quietly above the water.

Somewhere below, above the night, comes a phone call.
Hello?
Hi, it's me.
Oh. Hi.
What's up?
Nothing. You?
I think I'm going to bed.
OK. I guess it's late.
Yes. I'm tired. You go on without me.
OK.

The airport late at night

Empty, little cocoons of conversation. Most are alone. You see them in the distant dim, faces lit by their screens. A single Indian woman sits with a straight back, talking on the phone to her husband, promsing herself to him again and again.

True Story

Did you know that above the clouds it is always sunny?
When I tell you this it seems impossible.
But it is true,
I swear.

There is always another way

Would you pack up and move to a winter house with me?
It would be a bleak spot on the map
that we would plant and bury
There would be a broken fire
and for months nothing but
smoke would
mark our presence.

There would be so much to do.
It's always that way
when you start
There would be work in the back forty
and probably in the front, too
Fences, sheds, bridges, towers,
any architecture
we imagine
we would build
It would just be us
but that would be OK
since help is rarely what it seems.

I would not stop you from going outside alone.
I would stand at the window
with my gun
vigilant
You would never get lost like before
At dusk you would return
I would take off your boots
count your blue toes
and make you home.

This would be a temporary fugue.
One day the lights
never noticed dark
would turn on
The doors would open
The air would rush in
All the friends we forgot we had
would walk up the path
and call our lost names.