We drove into town and made a wrong turn. Both times we saw the deer

crumpled and kicked to the curb of the Goodwill parking lot. I was in love

—I think

I can tell you this now. Later that night, I had a dream. You were up

to your knees in crabgrass and cigarette smoke. I was no stranger to want

knowing only what I wanted, despite that strange and walloping feeling

like a wheel of rot orbiting my head. Some sinner I was. Some sin

the color of coffee gone cold but not bad—I liked you so exactly.

In the morning, I texted you to say I am rotting in bed. My feet were cold

and faced the window in which the trees wore the sound

of Venetian belltowers, a sputtering vibrator, recession pop music.

I tried to remember the dream as if it were a memory : the precious water

in your body glowing : gorgeous ravishing of time. Was it so terrible,

I kept wondering, and yes, yes it was. Where to begin : the soft stutter

of your eyes, skimming the Midwest sky for a viable source of love.

Your quickness when you bit into the core of an apple, realized it had gone

bad. A violent rush of red. It was an omen or maybe a regular metaphor, I laughed.

To stare and stare longer : oblivion in full bloom. Sunlight on ordinary

flowers, I know that’s what we were. And yet—talking to you, hearing

your voice, but not really, not at all. Touching your shoulder and touching

at once every autumn afternoon in the world. I thought I might have

died, in that melancholy, over a shot of whisky with you in my dimly lit

dorm room. So I got on the next train without you. It could have been

a good thing but instead it was maddening. Thank you and forgive me,

I wanted to say. That every time I sat up to get a better look at you,

I could only see the deer. So many times I stopped pretending

to be startled. Turning it over and over in my head: the secret universe

I gazed infinitely down a well. My useless tutting heart. Still it wants.

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