We covered ourselves in soot in my mom’s basement–
you told me you loved me but I had to move home

to have your heart. We dug holes in the backyard
but already too many buried bodies so I boarded

the plane, returned to L.A. to live at the foot of hills.
I said I’d visit sometime, up top, to overlook the ocean

I knew teeming with unspeakable life–
I could not say a word of it to anyone.

(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Spring 2020)