How dear you are to me

I know how dear you are to me, it's just
that sometimes, all my feeling goes away
except
I know
intellectually, at least
how dear you are to me
has held a better world together
than the one I see. I wish

sometimes my heart
could fly away, instead
of apart, leaving me to

the lurid, lucid, detailed memory
exhumed and charged, by imitating art

to life. Then suddenly, it trickles
back to flood, scablands caressed

one million tons of meltwater
rush crushing, hurling grinding rock

the ice plug of some glacial lake
gave way, on tick of geologic clock.

You wait an age for tock, and

fuck, how dear you are. To me,
you are the line I hold

against the flow, for dearest life

to me, is yours. I see that

everywhere I go,

now. I don't know how
anymore.