LONGINGS OF A WELL-WORN BODY

Susquehanna University

So, this is how I leave you; a rock in the shambles of your grandpa’s forty-year-old truck, breaking even with the horizon and hummingbird alone.

Please say hello before you say goodbye and lay your hand on the dash one last time. Even toggle with the binding on the Bible your mother left, waving by the squeaky purple-stained glass frame.

What I would give to fall for you one last time.

These thoughts run too quickly between the cotton sheets.

But I stand with my feet in the mud as you put your first toe in the grass.

Graze the air of the new world and step into the place where you’ve always belonged. I wish for a time soon where I can hold this coffee mug in my right and you in my left, brushing my lips on the spot just below your deaf ear.

But I stand with my feet in the mud as you put your first toe in the grass.

I have brought you this far, closing the tides, watching the door, hoping you’ll emerge from the surface and knock with your middle knuckle, knowing a piece of your heart has loved and collected and grown into a dandelion of yellow, a simple weed at a point in time.

But I am fine, and you are great,

and the blue flannel still sits, wrinkles, across your living room, threads missing, a brown button loose somewhere between the diner booth and the fifth seat in the movie theater.

I guess part of you will fade and reappear at the worst times.

So, this is where I leave you, one step forward with a sneaker left at the foot of my bed, a little mud caked to the lace, a blade of green woven at the toe. Do remember to send a postcard or two, same mailbox, same address #1. Or hand deliver and tell me all the best and the worst of the silver epiphanies and the scribbles on the receipts and I’ll tell you mine, if you find it interesting enough to merely listen.

You can leave specks and string the ties back together with each syllable, hanging the Polaroids with the clothespins, like you used to do.

And I will see you around soon,

all the best,

sincerely,

and dearly,

yours truly,

farewell.