I wish I still had time to write you letters
but I am stuck between branches with heavy

workload. I want to commit again to art, at least,
to singing songs with you on the beach under

natural harmonies of seagulls. The forest froze
under another frigid season, so I come to shore

in a long trench coat, alone, held firmly between
two worlds: the one in which I don’t have time

to do everything I want, and the other, in which
I still don’t, but keep your words dangling close.

(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Winter 2021)