Waiting for Happiness

Dog knows when friend will come home

because each hour friend's smell pales,

air paring down the good smell

with its little diamond. It means I miss you

O I miss you, how hard it is to wait

for my happiness, and how good when

it arrives. Here we are in our bodies,

ripe as avocados, softer, brightening

with latencies like a hot, blue core

of electricity: our ankles knotted to our

calves by a thread, womb sparking

with watermelon seeds we swallowed

as children, the heart again badly hurt, trying

and failing. But it is almost five says

the dog. It is almost five.