Poetic Proof that Fouts Should Increase His Meds.

Friends and Lovers.
M. Fouts

The bird is gone and you are not
the sky, and you are not the words,
and I am not writing them down.

     this morning she
    perched on my roof,
    reminding me of the wish
     I couldn’t make.

or allow myself to think about,
or the words I don’t have
to describe it. When she

     perched on my roof,
      she reminded me of you.
     I couldn’t make
     the words to describe you

or the way she looked at me just
before she spread her soft feathers
and wheeled into a too big sky.

     She reminded me of you
     because I don’t have
     the words to describe you
     without the bird.

And now my roof and the sky are
empty like I am empty, like
this page is empty, and

     because I don’t have
     you, or the sky, or the words,
     without the bird,
     I will not write them down.

          2007