a belief in silence and a
belief in distance
a small space set aside for
breathing on monday morning
build your house here and
dig a grave for each ex-lover
let flowers grow from their bones
grey sunlight and
unspoken apologies and,
every hour, another war
another name to add to the
list of innocent victims and it will
be your job to memorize them
it will be your fate to become
the one that got away
one hundred thousand poems of
loss and regret but they will
never add up to a lifetime
admit it
we can only measure
the ideas that mean the most
in terms of distance, in
magnitudes of negative space
one of us here and
one of us there and then
nothing but the shape of regret
in between