Dear Human
all I ever wanted was everything
repeated
milk and
honey over the face of the ocean
and behind each gill
hyacinths
it’s hard
to get it
even once
the calm arrangement oblivion
offers
the body
a star
in the mouth
every fountain dissolved by zinc
and copper
when all I ever dreamed
was déja vu
and the future buried
alive in the fifth stomach of my
past
like an ancient fortune cookie
unfolding dimension
lifting a hand into the air again
holding it
in my hands again
fanning it out and out and out
Dear Human
I am leaving the light on for you
a string could be drawn between our windows
of course a pane of glass
can be a shield
but every night it is a portal
my mortality lies prostrate inside its frame inside
my body waiting
if love is patient if love is
a kind of mourning
my wingspan is feather-by-feather
a pigeon pacing its sill
passing shadows over
your last trace
a book you left glows
within its glossy cover
poems at the foot of my bed about a lover’s feet
my fingers almost entirely reach
dear flux dear decay dear
vibrations buried between vibrations buried
between space
Bryce Lillmars received his MFA from UC Irvine’s Programs in Writing where he served as Art Editor for Faultline. Most recent ‘Dear Human’ poems have appeared in Conduit and are forthcoming from Green Mountains Review, American Literary Review and Southern Humanities Review. He’s at work on his first collection and lives in Los Angeles collecting succulents on his sills.