It’s cold enough / now / to wear jeans & a long sleeve / without sweating. / The Ohio sky / vivid as denim, / as if the clouds never / existed. / I can’t figure out the sacrament of it; / weathered glass & a wooded patio, / how the trees frame this memory. / It would be much simpler with your tongue in my mouth. / I open & watch dead leaves pour out. / You know all the benches are named after someone. / Inside / no one bothers to monument / us. / Where you planted / your lips on my / chest, / nothing blooms but maybe / there’s a life after this / to be sacred. / One in which hunger / passes into / softness. / The grass, browning. / Your blade, sharpened. / I drink pesticides / & ward off / serpents. / Craning toward light, / limb / by lillied limb, / petal / once more, & let me / perish. / Seemingly doomed to parable / status, / the greatest gospel of all is private: / a shoelace pulled / till my jeans hang right / from the ledge of my hips to my ankles, / still bug bit & bartering / with oblivion. / October blazing through / the greenhouse with-/out you.