There are roads

I'd like to go to bed early.

There's something waxy about this night

and my hair turning red.

I'd like to tell you that I did not write you back

because I could not

when the pennies on my fingernails were tails up

and the gravel you had kicked up still hung in the air

like gray stars to morning.

I'd like you to know

there's nothing like cold to sweep your birchbark clean,

nothing like old guilt to make you tired.

Was this the thing you knew all along?

That all our roads leave us oceanside?