The hour that all the other hours
have waited, in a hurry, for. It’s too
late to call them back now. The first stars
enter, unsure of why they’ve been summoned,
which story they belong to. If for once,
I want you to have this. This? The moon
but through a skylight. A softer ocean
on tap. What shall we do between now
and when. What shall we do. It comes
so easily to you. If we could die
like the days do, how they fold under
the tops of houses and straighten into
a next morning, the distance from their
past lives only a few mistakes, only
a different promise of violence.
Hold out your hand. Where is it?
The watch hand is on mine. Leave it.
So this is all— we must be put up
against each other again. When
I end. I want you to. Put it out.
Finish this. Whatever will carry
over up until that final boundary.
Then the original terror of falling
back into a single body. Then
I will not remember you. Have this.
Grace Li is a Californian writer, current MFA student in poetry at San Diego State University, and a UCLA alum. Her poems can be found in Los Angeles Review, The Shore, and Red Wheelbarrow.