EMILY PÉREZ
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Units of Measure

That year admission to a movie was two
burritos, the cost of a house on my street
three IPOs. In the time it took
to walk from fourth and Mission
to twenty-second and Dolores
playing and replaying what went wrong
I could have composed a song,
figured out a new way to bake
an eggless cake. San Francisco is one-third
a marathon, small enough to walk across
small enough to find you on a corner
in the lower Haight wearing a green sweater
under green eyes which were enough.
Then, nights were minutes
and days were weeks and weeks were waiting
to see who the next President would be. 
The news was you threatening to move to Canada
or Italy, the sitcoms were me believing it.
My birthday was two hemispheres,
summer for you in Peru, winter for me
at a funeral in Virginia; our reunion was
one urinary tract infection, eight hours on the phone
with friends discussing what had changed,
one step closer to therapy. You measured affection
for me in “for now”; I for you in strength
of stomach clench, the food
I couldn’t eat. The homeless man
we passed en route to that last movie
mistook hands held, proximity
of bodies for forever, warned us
not to let it go; you gave him
one weak smile not equivalent
to bread or money.

Primula Veris, Campanula Rotundifolia, Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Journal of Perennials

             for JEB
 

Days	Watching windows, wringing hands.
	I fiddled while you burned.
Gym	I ran till I could feel:
	lungs, liver, spine.
Nights	In the mirror I made more.
	Four lungs, two livers, two spines.
	I’m full.
	Please help yourself to mine.
Dream	We sit at the center
	of the bombed cathedral.
	Cowslip, bluebells flit
	in grass that once was stony floor.
	White sun looms above
	where wood beams used to vault.
	You hand me a palmfull of cells.
	This too shall change
	you say, tuck one
	under your tongue,
	one in the sod. We wait
	for them to take.
Afterward	Could you feel yourself in bloom?
	Wildflowers cresting your liver’s hill,
	on the inhale, swaying,
	with each exhale, pollinating.

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