Under an Oak

You should have seen yourself

in the rough light and reddening stones

the way your eyes dropped and lifted

The way you couldn’t look at me

after you did

You should have seen yourself

dusty ankles crossed in the shadow of the bench

toes marking regular ellipses in the dirt

The way your breath and mine snagged on

every branch and burr

of the unformed space between us

I don’t know what you would have seen

Would you have seen the way the sky split

and purpled above you
Would you have seen what that meant to the shape of your face
To the light in your lifted eyes

I think about what you would have seen

If it would have resembled what I saw

If it would have sung in the same way

or at all