Placing orchids between stones:
keep bending stems
keep folding petals
keep peeling fingertips—
the organization may be arbitrary but the motive is not at all

Swaps, just:
one bed for one smaller
one sleep for one shorter
one breath for one steeper—
these adjustments may be auxiliary but the outcome is not all at once

To you—or you—or you:
I still have so much love to give—
I still have so much love to give—
I still have so much love to give

I-80: the back of a billboard
frozen and rusted scaffolding
Oncoming traffic must make mirrored rear-views
to see what is plainly exposed to me across the paling road

I speak definitively but I’m still figuring how
they witnessed my worst health, but kicked me out anyway,
and held patient against my aches
as if they'd chalked it up to permanence;
just kept quietly saying

to me—to me—to me:
“We know you are not that special—
“We are not your goddamn parents—
“And we will not regret this treatment”

The dragonfly’s wing snaps and the moth’s billows;
flight is lost regardless
I observe this with apprehension during noisy evenings
of a month already humid and orange
amid weeks swollen with fresh foliage and El Niño's record heat

Past the still point:
if I catch familiar scents nestled in sleep—
somehow, despite clean sheets—
and we linger in the dark awhile
I hope it is finally less of a plummet, instead a momentary drift

to you—to you—To you:
I still had so much love to give—
I still had so much love to give—
I still had so much love to give
I still had so much love left to give