I used to write him
his poems said something I wanted to say

or said something the way they should be said
or said “hello” in a way that sounded like

digging in the earth for earthworms
and finding flint, or candy corn,

or loved ones we don’t speak to anymore.
Do you know what? I love you.

Flinty and full of
skeletal magic.

I’d forgotten, somehow,
that he was the Laureate, that

somewhere there was a man
leading toward you the secrets

that have never been secrets
that you have known all along.

There’s a string around my finger.
But what does it mean?