Lately I keep things
just to throw them away: practice,
practice. What I mean is, I’ve had enough
longing, enough of nothing
ever being enough. Look how the earth
shrugs its mountainous shoulders, how the cows don’t blink
unless there’s a fly, how the pavement quits
to dirt without warning, how the river can’t tell
itself from the rain. Since when can I not
get over anything? Just watch me go
to this town’s lone bar, which is open and chock-full
of blondes, blondes, blondes. The jukebox plays country
for free, which leaves me
with my ballast of quarters and cornered
by a woman who tells me she breaks things: horses
n’ hearts. I wish she would take
my heart out back and shoot it, lame
as it is, run as it’s been
by you into the ground, but she’d rather teach me
to two-step, which it turns out
I’m born for, having indecisively shuffled back and forth
through your door all these years. But from here
you’re a myth, tiny
jockey, impossible as Brooklyn,
elevators, it not being summer anymore.
Look, even the shades
are half-drawn and drooping
like eyelids, the walls
like the patrons, sloppy
and slouched. I promise I’ll love you forever
if you please just don’t make me
start now, in the brief dumb calm
of the just-fine, with this cowgirl pressing
her big stone-washed hips into mine. I want to take her home
but to someone else’s home, or perhaps just send her home
with someone else. What I mean is, I’m tired
of everything gorgeous. Of the burden
of burning. Of wondering
when. What I mean is, on some nights I miss you so much
that I never want to see you again.

“If I Leave You Then Maybe I Won’t Have to Miss You So Much” by Ali Shapiro

I can’t even be alone
when I’m alone, the way the field hums
all our old songs, the moon
pulling everything closer. You’re the ghost
in my throat, the lump I swallow
and swallow, the name that comes out
of my mouth no matter who
I meant to call. I meant to call more
people back. To love someone other
than you and myself and the dog.
Now look at the moon, its far
hard rim, a coin in the wide
dark palm of the sky—it’s the way
I remember your body, brilliant
and out of my reach. I’ve been lonely for years
but never minutes. That’s why
I’m so terrible at it, that’s why
I keep needing to be rescued. Night here
has a pulse, electric and warm, each ear of corn
a live wire. It’s the crickets, the thrum
of rubbed wings, it’s the way
you used to touch me—your limbs
all bows, my limbs
all strings. Look at the sky, it’s everywhere
tonight, relentless and empty
of signs. Look at the field, the way
there’s no one else in it, the way
even now, having left you,
I’m still what’s left.

“Leave Me Alone But Take Me With You,” by Ali Shapiro