by Daniel Barnum
how long away I was when what happened
did. compare county paperwork to memory:
maybe I woke up just as hands crushed
essence, cinched esophagus. did I know
and not, some psychic sense of rigor
mortis catching me cross country as it set in
in her bedroom? rates of expanse: ten years
from fifteen. how to calculate the lack,
solve for the exact date that I forgot
the black of her hair. one month between
the day of and the day I hear. weeks
I was busy breathing and the fact
of her was far off, but assumed to be
breathing back. she spoke so low I barely
understood except her laugh. not sure—
did I leave voicemails while snail watching?
vacation’s skinny-dip baptisms: the beach,
the creek, leeches risen out of river-
rocks to anesthetize and drink my legs.
was she ash already or unidentified,
starting to decompose? before I found
out, I felt her homegoing. telling tarot
on the backseat drive through graveyards split
by highway. back east, all was water:
gravity racing ground toward coast. distance
and time’s dials glowed blue in the nightlight’s
shallow. paper moon and fool—two cups
reversed to mean parting—tipped out the deck
into a pile on the floor. through the door
and the dark, I heard ocean swallowing its sting.