the spring came back
and the fox you killed
found my heart again

the two of us, the fox
and i
sat with grape juice mouths

and i asked:
fox,
where do we go when we go numb like this

but where does a ghost go when it
has burned down its own home,
when it lives in a river, a wheel, a wagon

there are things the fox knows i don’t:
when it comes back from the dead it just
licks off the grave dirt

i am able to laugh
once in a while
without being surprised by how good i am at faking it

it’s spring and i am chewing a new day
one where a poem doesn’t ring with your name
and the secrets we planted are no longer rotting

they’re flowering in our garden -
i no longer cry to water them, i use the salt
to rub wounds until i no longer feel them

the fox and i come back from the dead again
he and i,
and the whole world is an ocean.