Easter


I wanted to curve your cheeks
inside my hands,
count sunflower spirals
in patterns
down your collarbones.
You were going to wear a yellow dress
that defined the arcs of your hips like a violin.
I wanted to bring you flowers
graced by mythological goddesses;
I wanted to learn your middle name.

I planned for picnics and parks and front steps and back porches,
piano chords and typewriter keys, postcards and poetry graffiti,

I wanted to write sonnets on your skin
in permanent ink
so you would find traces of me in the shower,
still staining the backs of your knees.

Kneeling with hotel carpets
engraving themselves into our skin, we planned
to clasp hands and close eyes
in the clarity of the sunlight:

Easter Sunday morning, we swore we'd kiss
and find faith again.
But there's no Jesus playing guitar
on the steps of the Art Institute,
there's no Mary weeping pearls
into the algae of the lake.

There's only this girl
waiting for stained-glass sympathy,
pretending the green train windows
will turn to the grass of Central Park,
pretending spring will come
and pare away the time,
wash the distance off her skin like sand.  
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