the one with the great big stanzas
about the great big love,
where boy kisses boy, to shield
the flame of my lighter from the wind.
As if you had anything to do with it.

As if the boy’s heart beating in the line breaks
was better against the elements than my hand.
Maybe when I work my thumb
in a way that captures my throat in the flame,
my hand wrapped around the body, I am actually

destroying. I want to tell you
as if you were here, asking for a cigarette and reminding me
that paper burns no matter how much loss
fills the pages, that your memory doesn’t fight
the wind like a page does. I want

to ask if you remember
all the things my poetry forgets. How
can language fail here, at the end of the world?
It’s only use now, protecting
my flame from the wind, which is a weird way of saying

I need this book, which is a weird way of saying every book
is eventually your book, so long as it has the little words
we once whispered to each other on a train from San Jose
to San Francisco. You loved the city. I used that book you love.
It’s language, it stops the wind so nicely.