"Unconcerned but not indifferent"; 
a phrase to capture the feeling of dying.
In the Mont Parnasse cemetery in Paris, etched
onto the grave of Man Ray, these words of his
beg me to erase twenty years worth of worrying.
Twenty years of wondering when my breath will grow ragged,
of wishing the world would spin slower
or the wheels of the clock would wind back.

But this was before I'd found Europe,
traveled the Atlantic; added hours to a day
without fearing losing them,
walked the streets of Paris alone with no end in mind,
no plan for a day's worth of walking
but for moving forward, going on; living.

I sit on a bench here today to eat my lunch.
The city breathes life into the cobblestoned paths
of this most beautiful resting place.
I’m told the greenery draws the living,
luring them in for just an hour or two
to walk among the tombs: a sneak peek
into the future.
I’m told also I shouldn’t fear death,
though I have always been afraid.

But how can I cling to that
--now that I have seen Paris?
Lived and breathed and lost six hours
and not been afraid of that,
the losing of them.

Woman’s body found on eve of 42nd birthday
The toneless words of a beautiful reporter in my headphones
and transcribed across the attached TV screen don’t surprise me
as I go up, down, up, down in pink gym shorts.
She could have felt the same way before
the birthdays stopped;
monotonous, running but going nowhere.

Teenage boy caught in crossfire in Newark, killed
When my suffering can’t compare I increase the incline,
seeking a reason to feel better about my privilege,
here on a purple elliptical, the slick inside
of Planet Fitness like a heaving
windowless box. “You’re burning 68
more calories per hour!” The new deficit
scrolls across my screen, inviting me to take
more away from my body.

The remains of three women identified after 20 years
The word ‘remains’ is a reminder that a body is not forever.
Around me, dozens of women in sync try to shrink,
limbs flailing on bulky machines,
as the families of the girls
on the TV screen have never been happier
to have their daughters’ bodies, whole again.

On the last night,
I realize the insignificance of a year
in the bigger picture, held up against the
length of my life and my mother’s life,
and the billions of lives the earth has held,
and the life of the earth itself. 

Blink and one year is gone
and I’ve fallen in love with a stranger,
twice, shared more late-night conversations
and kisses than I can remember,
skipped class one too many times.

This is a reminder that one bad day
will fall into the good ones, forgotten.
That a week-long fight lasts
no longer than a heartbeat.
That the sun rising now, creating
a shadow across my first year,
will set again today.
It will be gone so soon.

On the other side of the door
it is probably raining.
The window nearby proves me right,
fogged by the soft humidity that often accompanies weather like this.

I bend to tie my running shoes anyway,
ready for the hills & the breathlessness
that will soon catch me off guard.

When I reach for the doorknob
 & hear you move in the next room,
back early from your own run,
I pause too long in the cold rush of air.

On the other side of that bathroom door,
it is probably colder.
I imagine you turn the water as hot as it will go,
so the steam that fills the air
catches on the mirror
not unlike a foggy window.

Wake up, wake up,
we’re waiting,
it’s sunny, you’re late,
he’s at the door,
he’s waiting, come
down and say hello.
Here is today.

Best friend’s impatient,
spine’s rusted to the mattress,
Mother’s been up for hours,
childhood is too clearly
gone. Can you hear me,
come on,
let’s go.

Head in pillow, there is
emptiness in these mornings,
a kind of restless discomfort in
okay, keep ignoring me.

I wonder which moments I'll remember.
Head pounding, voices calling,
wake up, good morning, good morning,

goodbye,
I open the door.

The University’s gardens are different at noon;
different, too, in rain and gloom, but no less lovely.
In the fourth garden, a hill rises like a twisted spine
against the flatness of the rest: hiding keepsakes, a forbidden lifestyle, bones.

I think of my own poor posture, of my once curved spine
made right from years in an unforgiving brace.
I want to forget the people who made their homes here,
beneath a now grassy hill, where a different kind of unforgiving held them captive.

On Easter, I question your existence again.
I want to find you exactly right--
or not find you at all.

Strike one: there’s no sign of you
branded on the toast
I make hastily at 5 am.
I eat quickly, but still I’m late
to meet a car that has already
driven away; strike two.
Strike three is the unexpected loneliness 
of climbing a mountain in the dark,
with a group I barely know,
on my first holiday
away from home.

But when we reach the top, perched among
the mountains of Virginia as the sun comes up,
amidst cries from my companions of “He is Risen!”,
I imagine you not as you’re known but
as I want you to be--
in the heart of the boy 
who didn't climb here with me
because he slept too late.

(1)
Once, I did not have memories.
Long before words, before sin,
before hopes and dreams.
There was no God then.
Just a feeling so intense
it must have meant alive.

(2)
I do not remember
how it felt to be born.
I do not remember anything
before the need to christen –
to put letters to the way I
felt and the things I believed.
To give the numinous feeling
I had lost the name
of God,
a word without a memory.

(3)
In the home where my grandfather lives,
I observe the way he stares at my brother and me
with a desperate yearning to run and dance and play with us
like a child again, to feel intensely the things
we do now. Trapped in a single room, he wishes
to forget what it means to be lonely, to return to
the state of ecstasy before memories, before words,
before sin and hopes and dreams. There was no God then,
and there is no God now. Just an emptiness where, once, there was

(4) yù yī (noun):
a feeling so intense
it must have meant alive.

1. January Half-Light
Moonlight, shadow-ridden, dreamland;
perched beneath the window,
attuned to the silence of snowfall
that moves weightlessly
through the sky.

2. Spring Fog
Dewy grass, new leaves, morning;
breathing deep in the field
after an early run,
the ground wet with leftover night
will soon dry in the gentle noon.

3. July, Shadowless
Loud music, bright lights, festival;
feet planted in dust as
the stage rises above,
adorned in flowers to feel as
beautiful as the intoxication
of loud music outdoors in
late afternoon.

4. Remembering Fall
Crunching, thoughtful, moonrise;
someone steps in from
forgotten cold to stamp out their boots
before kissing her goodnight.