Half

MAGIC

When I spoke to you and you alone,

when I did not pretend

I knew nothing,

or almost nothing,

as they must amount to the same thing,

it was easy to spend time

in the invention of kingdoms,

it was easy to name

the horse dying of fenced-in boredom

and for which

I could never remember a single sweet apple.

It was easy to walk

through the street

with my eyes closed

humming some sad song

I’d never reveal

to you now.

It was easy.

Easier than breath,

but that must be a lie—

if breath were easy, no one would choose to die.

Some days all I can do

is lift my name

from the unscented sheets

of the bed,

littered with the body’s colorless soil.

I think of your hand

and all the splinters

it has suffered

and with a word extract them.

It’s easy.

Poof.

I think of the many times

I’ve strayed

into the blown strands

of a spider’s web.

Nineteen years

have left me no stronger.

My face laced with invisible, intolerable silk,

your hurtless hands

I wish would appear.