Love Poem with Tumor and Petrified Dog

There is a tumor in my sacroiliac joint

and snowflakes in my coffee.

I’m in Iowa with the cats

and you’re in Pompeii.

You send a video: lizards rushing into limestone

which remind you of being a kid in Florida.

In Florida we memorized sonnets

while leaping around green anoles.

I’ve forgotten the poems.

Your black tights, even in that heat.

Mostly that’s what I remember.

It’s okay to say it straight.

Like: I’m scared, still,

that I might be dying.

Pomegranates growing from Pompeiian ash,

scandalizing propriety—

you send a picture and I do not say,

It just looks like a tree

or Another of God’s secrets

wasted on me.

Which part of the mind

gets you to the soul?

I am reading St. John of the Cross,

a character you might’ve put in a poem:

In the evening of life,

we will be judged on love alone.

Some petrified dog. Table bread,

a painted doorway.

You’ve been with me forever.

You know all my angels.

How could I say no to you,

taking off your earrings to kiss me?