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you leapt sometimes
you walked away sometimes
that time on the phone you
couldn’t get your breath
I leapt but couldn’t get to you
I caught the brow that bid the dead
I caught the bough that hid
I’m, you know, still here,
tulip, resin, temporary—
From Shirt in Heaven, published by Copper Canyon Press. Copyright © 2015 by Jean Valentine. Reprinted with permission of The Permissions Company on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.
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Light drifts across the ceiling as if we are under water —whoever would approach you you changed the comer You holding on to the front of my coat with both hands, the last time I saw you —I felt your death coming close —the change in your red lips You gave me your hand. You pulled me out of the ground.
In a circle of 12 winter trees
I’m hunched
Remembering being fled from
—Who gave me this wool sweater?
So it please you life, we won’t go alone—
Next year will be better.
Remember that white tree?
The white underpaint of the government.
The country of bone.
In memory of Michael Brown