Your favorite mornings were
when you turned off
my skin—
my hair became elongated fiber
my eyes, melted and frozen,
over and over.
*
It became this soft
repetition—
this event—
of cars and medical wire,
deer crossing the street
with nowhere to go but up and over—
up into the stars, over
the neighbor’s fence.
*
I spent my mornings smelling
expended gasoline
and sea salt, through a window
where there was
no water.
Your hands, like two Irish Setters,
kneaded into my skin
and paused,
as if waiting for answers,
as if waiting for directions
to the nearest
phone booth
to report the collision
of deer to engine.