Impatient

Were those bell tower sighs you heard —?— as the hum of my car turned off your street, silent with distance, by the big old tree — the only reason I remembered where you’d be.

Were those bell tower chimes you felt for in your pocket while I mumbled out my day, rolled off my socks and touched my toes to the linoleum space between the carpet and your bed?

Were those crucifixes you hid in your shoulders? Were those psalms in a palimpsest on your chest?

Were those bell tower nights? That you walked cold-handed and crooked-foot by the lake near my place?

Were those bell towers at all you heard when you tried to keep me from saying dirty words? Tall-walled ideas and chain gang promises — everything you knew I hated.

You knew when I stopped asking, you’d hear them ring.

All in a quick tilt, out before the copper greened.

-for Andrew