I’ve been building poems beneath the hard backs
of park benches, on the insides of their legs, 

on the spare tire beneath the single running car in
the rain soaked 7-Eleven parking lot where a couple 
is feuding over the proper pronunciation of inadequacy,
he says it like his father would, she says it like her
mother wouldn’t dare,

behind the glass in the mirror over the Irish bar,
where I watched hockey beside inebriated men wishing
for pints that drowned them in Lake Baikal,

in the breaths I’ve lost with winter.

My hands are no longer soft.
I kept busy. If these poems
are found, I may never know,
but I’ve left a map beneath the coldest
corner of your pillow. Count the paces.
Pull the daisies that grow in the park,
beside the bench, you’ll find the first here.
Give the flowers to the couple with 
the flat tire, hush their bickering, kiss their
foreheads - the second. Accept their offer
to buy you a drink, insist the bartender
let you dust the dirty mirror clean, let the
men see how bright their eyes still are,
follow their gaze - the third. Find me
beneath the snow covered cedars,
bring me inside, next to the fire
- the last. Open these doors with my
fingers, stay with me there.
Show me they were meant for you.