I know you think that I am just another melancholy poem,
written in a blue-painted room, at a wooden desk, by moonlight.
When the truth is, I was written outside, on a bus stop bench at noon,
while the poet ate a salted pretzel from a street vendor’s cart.
Don’t judge me if my cicada won’t sing mournfully, it isn’t up to you
to decide what I’ve lost (my keys) or who I am missing (my dog.)
And maybe it isn’t raining, the windows of this cottage are not crying.
Maybe today I am just sad without reason—because I had a dream
about a boy in a plaid shirt, because I didn’t walk through the yellow leaves,
because it smells like wet soil and ashes outside.
But you still get to misplace your sadness onto mine. What better way
to be sad than to read a poem, this downturn of letters on a page
that run like tears, always pointing towards the last word?