The winter I told you I think icicles are magic, You stole an enormous icicle from a neighbors shingle And gave it to me as a gift I kept it in my freezer for seven months Until the day I hurt my foot And needed something to reduce the swelling Love isn't always magic Sometimes it's just melting Or it's black and blue Where it hurts the most Last night I saw your ghost Pedalling a bicycle with a basket Towards a moon as full as my heavy head And I wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket Like ET with my glowing heart glowing right through my chest And my glowing finger pointing in the direction of our home Two years ago I said I never want to write our break up poem; You built me a time capsule full of big league chew And promised to never burst my bubble I loved you from our first date at the batting cages When I missed 23 balls in a row And you looked at me Like I was a home run in the ninth inning of the world series Now every time I hear the word, 'love', I think going, going... The first week you were gone, I kept seeing your hand wave goodbye Like a windshield wiper in a flooding car In the last real moment I believed the hurricane would let me out alive Yesterday I carved your name into the surface of an ice cube Then held it against my chest 'til it melted into my aching pores Today I cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door And asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar I told them I left my sweet tooth in your belly button Love isn't always magic But if I offered my life to the magician If I told her to cut me in half So tonight I could come to you whole And ask for you back Would you listen For this dark alley love song For the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies? I wrote you too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace If I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat So this is my wheat field; You can have every acre, Love This is my garden song This is my fist fight With that bitter frost Tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath The night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek As I sang, maybe I need you Off key But in tune Maybe I need you the way that big moon needs that open sea Maybe I didn't even know was here 'til I saw you holding me Give me one room to come home to Give me the palm of your hand Every strand of my hair is a kite string And I have been blue in the face with your sky Crying a flood over Iowa so you mother can wake to Venice Lover, I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest Now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered Bible It is the one verse you can trust So I'm putting all of my words in your collection plate I am setting the table with bread and grace My knees are bent Like the corner of a page I am saving your place