You Didn’t Say You Were Changing Your Name You Didn’t Say Anything

 

your drawing of a boy
you were age four

You Didn’t Say You Were Changing

Your Name You Didn’t Say

Anything

 

Tonight the mirror will forgive my face.

                                    Sherman Alexie

                                    The Lone Ranger and Tonto

                                                Fistfight in Heaven

 

I’ve let the honeysuckle vine

rise up and glide the dying lilac

spine and from my starboard

 

drive/side it is a giant

dinosaur her curved vertebrate

wide and bright I imagine

 

beneath her skin and alive

all alive even while the lilacs

have died they’ve all died

 

and lie in their leaves and

hands and fingers they hide

behind the invasive vine.

 

I might let it ride

out the entire next season

she seems to need so little

 

to thrive: simply life

as it rises up on the tight

bright delight of almost

 

flight.