She’s entered the throw
the pen across the room
tantrum era. And she misses

the way ink used to flow
(without interruption)
to greet her

(mistaken) love for you.
How nothing would impede
her from rushing headlong,

no, heartlong,
into some ill-timed, ill-advised
irrepressible infatuation

never built to last.
And the sympathetic kind
wouldn’t dry up.

She’s not done
telling Portland brownstone quarry
stories. The cliff jumping,
never brave enough to dive
or rappel her way down.

She’s not done
cladding vestibules in terra-cotta
moss tile. The abandoned
beautility shed
is in danger

of losing its essence.
Someone has made a mess
of her facade
trying to remove the “You’re beautiful”
tattoo. She’s not done

scratching your initials
gently into the soft wood
of so many park benches—whispers
to calm night’s
untranslatable terrors.

She’s not done
romanticizing the stoop.
Beneath the pavement, it is
so much like a beach.
She’s not done

baking clay, laying bricks.
She’s not done
asking the brick
what it wants.
She’s entered the room

without any weapons left
in her hands, except
an old postcard.
In cramped, barely legible
handwriting, it reads:

From one island
to another, I confess
you can see Cuttyhunk,
but not Uncatena, from here.
I know we’re not done yet.