Letter That Keeps Undressing Itself

for Maura

I wanted to tell you something about twilight—
            the blue hour
                        glow of the cold around my arms
                                    night is done—

            How the wind,
                        in the skull’s empty eyesocket,
            stilled. The thrown water,
and the bees that came. Sometimes, this color,
            allows my hands to be strangers
                        to each other.

I wanted to tell you about the first-light, the residue
            of sun clinging
                        to the sidewalk—
                                    how this winter,
the visiting neighbor I’m trying to love

is my body—

Slouched towards the ribbon of my mouth,
                        stayed on my knees,
            and pulled at language,
                        like your hands uprooting the hair from the drain.
            The rope of it. I wanted to say Friend,

you are here. This is happening.

I wanted to tell you—
            winter’s solstice
                        the raven working at the rat’s open heart
                                    military jets ruining the sky—

wanted to tell you of the raptor wings
that stirred the darkness
on the road to Sonora, the orange bloom
            of that morning’s civil twilight—

but, instead,
            I worked the words over and over. Friend,

            tell me what is true.
                        Tell me of the things you cannot change,
            and how they changed
                                    when breached by light.