i've been carrying
around the red notebook
you bought me for my birthday 
last week. i can't bring 
myself to write in it, 
but that's usual for me.

in book stores i'm always drawn
to the shelves of leather bound
journals & pocket notepads. 
it's something about beautiful chaos.
i lack direction, turning page
after page of wordless poetry.

i want to bring you over & 
point to the empty lines saying
this is a sonnet about the softness
of your hands, about how in the end
everything turns out square like
a house i accidentally 
build us on a sleep walk. 
it has too many windows.

the shelves in the book store
would swell, more mammoth than 
the redwoods & 
we would lose our shadows in them.

i'd say 
this is a terza rima about your 
voice in the hall where we stopped
on our first date-- the mirrors 
inviting ghosts-- this time i 
ask to dance with you like 
candelabra's full of cold rain. 

we spill onto a page. 
occasionally i open the notebook
to find us both standing inside--
back to back-- writing
to each other in white ink.
turn around
i whisper, but they don't hear me. 

this is all to say that
i'm keeping the book empty to hold
a space for us somewhere someday.
the little ribbon bookmark,
a red drop of blood or rain
following between us. 

maybe a telephone line. 
maybe a strand of hair. 
maybe a blank like to write on.