i. You were with me          not a picture of you behind my lids    not a dream but a kiss          a life I lived I woke up          not knowing where I was or who          you were beside me wiser          in another life. ii. As though my lover placed his cold, chapped hand against the soft tissue under my ribs, stopping my breath. As though that silence were an incision I could step through. Foot-lifted, hand in the flame. As though we were sparrows hopping on the garage roof, the trees dripping, piercing the gray with silver needles. A pink magnolia holding up palm after palm of blossom.

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