Page 32 - WDickinson_Blackwell_Submission

The system tells us what is in a place. What will
come and go. You
are the mass I watch, slowly leaving my system
in the smallest ways.
Food that accumulates in the fridge
and decays with time.
The corduroy pants of mine you used to wear
that now sling loosely around your hips.

I kiss you there, too,

in the bowl between each iliac crest, that place
I had loved, and do each day,
even as it hollows.

(Depending on medium—
the transport through skin and sinew—
sometimes even the smallest parts of you
remain ingrained
down to the bone.)

I imagine those quiet, selfish,
and increasingly rare moments when you would
look at me in the dark and whisper,
“I’m coming.”

Wherever you are going,
I want to go, too.

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