I love you and had to put it in writing
on a scrap torn from a brown paper bag

I keep in my wallet
to recall

a looking away 
so I trip unseen

a renaming:
I purr in my sleep

a being tall 
when my reaching fell short

a request to read your story 
before the editor 

an insistence I not go look for the damn dog
it knows its way home (it did)

a pretense in morning
my rage did not ruin the night (it did)

an unmooring of our pasts
when we met

I keep your note in my wallet
to make real

that you tore a scrap from a brown paper bag
to write that you loved me