I’m back in touch with my first
boyfriend, John. He’s a tree-doctor
in Laos, and single parent.

Writing to him is unsettling because
it shakes the girl who was there
from her longstanding sleep.

Above the bed in someone’s
guest room, someone had written
fuck you in calligraphy on the ceiling.

Then a long bus ride home alone,
small town to small town.

No two loves the same,
but ever afterward

an absence makes itself known.