I wish I could bring you
some things you may have
forgotten, like white locust
honey, and those children
we met once in Lefkas, named
after gods: Telemachus counting
to 100 on the square while Aphrodite hid.
I want to give you their getting lost,
their having somewhere to go.
And all those happy worms inside
our cherries. And bedsheets like sails,
tugging the house towards the orchard.
Your choir breathing in
between notes, someone playing
flute for the cows. The crank radio, Terry Gross.
Do you remember your accordion’s buttons,
burdocks stuck to your sweater, or
the eddy pulling us back upstream? I want
to tell you I once swam pregnant.
The beehive moaning at night, the Singer
sewing machine in the second-hand shop,
the god inside the eggplant. I bring you
your old horse Tammy who once
sprinted off with me on her back. She is still
holding her breath while you tighten her girth,
she is still trying to outsmart you.