This morning, the sun on the porch
is just the cool side of warm,
and the little hula girl on the patio table
drinks light and shimmies her toy hips
while the crows bicker about us,
while the cats curl through our legs
and I tell you about yellow ginko leaves
and why they remind me of you.
You aren’t here, not today.
Today, you tell me you are imaginary.
You are a wisp of an image
swaying like the hula girl
in the steam that curls
off my coffee cup,
and vanishes just as quick
but I wish you were.
I imagine the spring light
in your wild hair, the music you make,
the poetry you fill my mouth with,
my fingers and my mouth,
I imagine my mouth
full of yellow ginko, full of your tongue.
If I imagine you
real, would you be real?
Be real, so I can tell you of the poem
I’ve picked out for your hip.
Be real, so I can translate the debate
and bicker of crows to you.
Be real, unbrushed and wild, be real
so when I cease to imagine and start to long,
you are what my fingers can grasp.
