the first time I remember you, you're blonde and don't love me back.
I wish it stayed that way. but soon You're brunette
and You do. It's the sweetest thing I've ever tasted.
Your brown hair was like hot chocolate in autumn,
wool gloves in the snow,
a candy store in February.
it never occurred to me that
candy rots, gloves get soaked, and chocolate residue
pools at the bottom of mugs like tea leaves.
then, You're a red head with fading freckles and a consuming love.
i stay because i feel responsible.
maybe loving me is just as addicting as loving You.
i stay because that burning is intense, yes, but it
reminds me of past candlelit dinners.
warmth and heat are one and the same, aren't they?
Twelve.
Waking up from fitful dozing
I heard the yelling and screaming
Of boys bypassing the bus in their bikes
Screaming, “ Happy New Year!”
I look around my fellow passengers –
We have yet a long way to reach home
There wouldn’t be much of a New Year celebration
For us; I love my fellow travelers.
I fall into a reverie, remembering New Years –
Ruefully, I remember those, drunken, partying kinds
That of lying in the middle of a highway at night
That of dizzying hopping from bar to bar
That spent on the top of a hill, shivering in the cold
That by the side of the sea where I would part with my love.
I remember the New Years, lacklustre, spent at home
How I hated that bus
as it rolled me
serenely away
from you.
Somebody is always,
always baking bread. It’s
been that way for thousands,
thousands of years.
Additionally, if life
is short, then there is
no such thing as
a long bus ride.
In conclusion, the bus
rolled onto a street
of shops, and we smelled
bread, baking; baking bread.
Maja used to say,
“Thank you for today.”
From her I learned
everyone’s old and
young at once.
At night in snow
near Maja’s bus-stop
on Maja’s basic street—
Murargatan means
street of bricks—wild
rabbits sometimes paused
like caesuras in Swedish
conversation. I waited.
I felt wiser after leaving
Maja’s house. Life itself
was a tutorial. I’d gathered