singing lessons

Don’t try to distinguish between singing and calling.                 Try
to hear one leaf fall                 in the midst of all the leaves that are
falling.                 Turn your head in time to see where it lands.                 Turn
this sentence into a bath towel                 in which to wrap the damp
and trailing parts                 of the one you love.                 Change what you’re
hiding inside the word you.                 Change it again.                 Light small fires
in the middle of your poems.                 Ask the one you love if what
you believe is their voice reaching through a storm                 is just your own
blood rushing in your ears.                 Believe what you name something
can save it.                 Remember every prayer                 has to wrestle with the rain.
Uproot the stump in the garden                 using only your eyelids.                 Bury your
heart in the flowerbed                 like a cat’s rigid conclusion                 or the wings of every
love they swallowed whole.                 Ask the one you love                 if this means you’ll
come home                 or if this means you won’t.