For Bryce

If only I’d known that at the end of that haunted forest,
tree trunks twisted faces and averted eyes, branches
seizing wrists and ankles, that I would land in your clearing,
I would have thanked God for the muscle sprains.
If only I’d known that 1,000 miles across fields of wheat and longing,
in a town I’d sworn never to return to, you’d be waiting, I would
have skipped through the flaxen sea, embraced the world as
I knew it ending as the dawn of something brilliant,
landed in the back of a room full of worshippers traveling to
lay compliments at your white sneakers. I’d be their acolyte,
my head nodding along to the songs they sing of you. If your mind
is a ball of yarn unspooling, consider me a kitten,
pawing to unravel it and discover every centimeter. A neophyte,
already I need your hands covered in my damp dew and
your titanium. I’ll work out your kinks. Whisper-write your name
on every tree and piece of paper. I hope you see what I see
when our eyes meet: an open door, an unmade bed, a place to just exist.