Kat Finch

All this to say we won’t be there for any of it –

dear jake, i want to see a cactus in the wild
    to thrust a spile into leathery flesh + suck juice amidst its spines.
this is what sunset could look like.   don’t you agree?

    god how we paint our beer, + good god how we hide
arugula in our unmentionables! our understanding of forever
    seems to perpetuate an end. so i’ll burn candles in order to eliminate

the things we don’t say. + what i know of incense is not much
    but smoke comes from many places we often ignore – + if
i could pray, i would pray:

                                        dear universe,
                                        today you have taken. all our sunsets
                                        + dawns
                                        are stained red. i

                                        am always
                                        planting candlelight with him
                                        in mind. (please
                                        don’t keep

                                        matches
                                        for secrets.) universe, i don’t want to miss
                                        him anymore. tell me
                                        how he fell apart?

jake, imagine red to rind. imagine the troth that grows
    from arugula. imagine the last time the sun
sets. we are forever in the garden, imagine it goes

    by many names. & if you stop, it hurts too much. think
about the crocuses that bloom in snow – every year
    they die, they come alive. i am melting not

into you, but away. each day a little more
    of us evaporates.   does it feel nice? i’m never sure – not even
when you’re gone. jake, you’re out fishing

                                            for the summer. i know you’ll come back,
                                        even though you never do. not really, not to me
                                            anyway, not a crocus, not a sunrise.

Kat Finch is a writer from the pacific northwest. She has work out or forthcoming in Sonora Review, Whiskey Island, & Sugar House Review, among others. Her first chapbook, Birds With Teeth, was published by alice blue press.