The lacrosse lesson

My mind swirls in its own bedclothes,

tangling itself alone at night with thoughts of you.

Smoke fills my nose before swelling out into the night,

and only then can I breathe you in deeper.

You’re not with me now, and you never were.

That’s the tragedy from all of this.

It’s what holds me up at night, propping my head against the wall

as your absence continues to stifle my dreams.

My limbs feel warm under your fingertips, cold as they

pull away. I arch my back to reach and bite them as

they withdraw. But when I close my teeth and open my eyes,

I am biting only empty air on which lingers the smell of beer.

Whether it is comfort or closeness which pulls me into you

I cannot be certain. But I know that when you are gone

the feelings will come of being, once again, a bullet without a gun

sitting on the table, having its potential but never using it.

Your hair, brittle like dry grass and shining red in summer’s stare

as you teach me to wield your sword, a lacrosse stick.

It weighs heavily in my arms because it is strong, and I cannot understand

how it could move with skill when I’m attached to its end.

You understood that, too.