No Carpenter

Out in your backyard, ‘bout a month before this flood,

We stumbled on things tossed away, sunk and defunct in the mud.

You took a little box: burned, or caked with grime.

Didn’t know what to put it in to make it peel, reveal its undershine,

Or know what to put in it, what it could safely hold.

My best friend, for you, I am trying to get everything said and told.

To say:

Though your flare from the shore fills the ocean with shadows,

I am too fixed on the moon to climb away clear of the tide.

Far nearer than that sky your eyes are plainly led,

Where even lines in parallel converge somewhere up ahead.

Am I walking too quick (weighed by no carpenter’s load)?

I can’t build a home, though I can pave a road.

Late in the rainy season, I wandered back to where you dug in your heels

And asked for my plans for our frame and foundation — as if I knew.

Though I didn’t tell you anything untrue, still, I am saying I lied.

Here there is a box, hollow on the floor.

My fierce revelation, I’m trying to want what I wanted before.

There’s a roof over you, there’s nothing of mine in your drawer,

And I promise I’m glad for the light that shines under your door.