"Let's go back
to when you hung
on my words like monkey bars
when you sighed the first time
you ever kissed me,
gave me lottery winning eyes
when you kissed me again" 

All the distances are black ants
on gray clouds slipping by fingers
The gray is a blue child's breath
The gray is a stubbled man's beard 

Jesus, in the glowing photograph, the kindness in your eyes is home comfort. The kind I've never known. Like you'd never flip the flames in your mind, burn my mother-loving hands. You are not in flight but water-walking to bring me fish and wine. 

They dared me to ride under, past
their obstacle course —I did have something
to prove—I needed to win this race.
I held tight to my handles, gripped sharply
onto the balance I found there near
the street. 

It wasn't their secrets I sought
but my own secrets squashed down
in the carpet between rows and rows
of tight loops, pushed hard
into the waxy terrain.