Tree Buds and Afternoons

Nine or so years ago
my hands were stars,
convinced they were
waxed paper, folding
over and over,
like moth wings, bent
on shaking all their dust.

When I remember you,
there are smells, the way
spring smells, like apologies
and lamplight through early
morning blankets -- or --
there is a hum, like laundry
and the breeze in my skirts
-- or -- there is a glow,
like your fingers on my
grandfather's guitar,
like tinnitus, like the space
in your voice where my name
used to be.

Tell me again how to say
goodbye to something I
forgot instead of forgiving.
You were always under
something, the trees, my
shirt, a lie, and I never knew
you the way I wanted to,
the way you knew my hands,
the way my hands knew
your ribs so well.