RUTH ELLEN KOCHER

string theory

it was not your sun. it was not your sweat
your hand nor breath nor talk again i think it was a verse
it was not fast food nor never again will the bliss not
your idea and it wasn’t. not one of them. her, or her
or her. none of them asked you if you wanted back.

my sky is my sky and you do not share it although
i know your sky well. it has nothing to do with gravity.
it does not subscribe to the typical physics of corn rows.
the buildings with their dreamy steel tits will never touch it.
would your sky if it called you would you hear your name.

it is true that “to be” is a very weak verb, even though
it is true there were raspberries in the refrigerator.
it is true there were mice in the closet, and in the rice.
it is true that “to be” cannot mean to mean more than it is
and to be as much is to be beyond—what, is it true?

i have been thinking about how nothing has happened
the way we remember it happening, and how what we
remember, is only ours. you never said yes in the way
i remember. your hands did not mean what i thought, either.
i thought not one thing your hands have agreed to remember.

you’re so absent—from me. is this
what you meant in the thai restaurant in boston—
how you break off with someone—the bird calls.
the bird calls. the bird calls. the bird calls, and nothing answers.
nothing calls for the bird. so the bird goes away.