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Description
From the first I thought you transcendent. Your body
silhouetted in the doorway was thin, long like a length of rope.
There were lanterns bobbing outside, flooding the night
with dim orange

the color was on your face and hands as if
you had eaten slices of the noonday sun;
your skin was velvet on fire.

-

a fatherless boy, you learned your first
words from the television. I took that to be why
at times you were like a blank screen,
arctic eyes unresponsive—

there was a problem with the signal.

The beautiful moving images started and stopped
I wanted to call a repair man but my friends told
me to pray.

-

your sleep carried you away from me.

while dreaming you bought plane tickets, went on boat rides,
stepped across the cratered surface of the moon

you boarded trains the color of jade and I wanted to know

did you leave your heart on them like a piece of abandoned
luggage so that it would always be speeding away?

-

a ruby-throated hummingbird visited my birdfeeder yesterday.
the sky was fast spitting out white bits of wonder but it
continued to fly.

Description
From the first I thought you transcendent. Your body
silhouetted in the doorway was thin, long like a length of rope.
There were lanterns bobbing outside, flooding the night
with dim orange

the color was on your face and hands as if
you had eaten slices of the noonday sun;
your skin was velvet on fire.

-

a fatherless boy, you learned your first
words from the television. I took that to be why
at times you were like a blank screen,
arctic eyes unresponsive—

there was a problem with the signal.

The beautiful moving images started and stopped
I wanted to call a repair man but my friends told
me to pray.

-

your sleep carried you away from me.

while dreaming you bought plane tickets, went on boat rides,
stepped across the cratered surface of the moon

you boarded trains the color of jade and I wanted to know

did you leave your heart on them like a piece of abandoned
luggage so that it would always be speeding away?

-

a ruby-throated hummingbird visited my birdfeeder yesterday.
the sky was fast spitting out white bits of wonder but it
continued to fly.