I remember the nights when I would sneak a cigarette

out the window, walk a lap around the block & tell myself

I was alone when I wasn’t. I remember the way you said it –

empathy for your future self – & the hair in your eyes

as you did, takeout Thai between our legs as we dangled

over your roof above 2nd Avenue. You can kid yourself,

I’ve learned, for a long ass time. & not in a good way, no,

the way, sometimes, the whole world needs to kid itself

toward joy or light or the equal distribution of wealth

across this vast playground we sometimes kid ourselves

into believing that we are not destroying. I kidded myself

away from you, writing poems about the moon when

the moon wasn’t even out, little liar that I am. If I’ve

learned anything, it is not much, but just enough about love

to know that grace can take the shape of a phone’s pinhole

pressed against an ear, or of the silence of leaving, or of the first

brush of kissing after coming back together. I remember

the worst & then sometimes wonder why I desire a life

different than what I have, a life where, just this morning

you stood by the door before I left for work, & said

don’t forget to tell the world that you’re my best friend.

You punched the air & smiled & you became, honey,

the one song I’ll play on repeat my whole life, tapping

out the rhythm against the table as the tomatoes simmer

in the pan. Yes. This life where, one winter, hiding behind

a snowblower, you made engine sounds & laughed as you,

surprised by your little love of power, moved the snow

from one pile to another. Sometimes I think that’s what

intimacy is – just a question of movement, the way I’ll kiss

you in the kitchen or the bed; I’ll blow a burp in your face

& take yours in mine; I’ll pause, making coffee in the morning’s

winter darkness, & marvel that this is my life. There. I did it.

I remembered beautiful; I remembered well. I remembered

the way your absence turns the world into the shape of you

whenever you are gone, & you become the space between

my pocket & my heart, & the whole distance that the horizon

makes of sky. I remember you did the same for me. You opened

your arms wide enough to harbor the space of all of me, & then

moved them close enough to let me know that all of me was being held.