Here, download your brain tape

For Ruth

I know things have been tough,
but it is ok.
You are ok.

You carry satchels inside your ribcage,
frienships earring rest on your mantelpiece,
the lacework of classrooms cross your collarbones.

If you can look at the negatives, see fringes eating watermelon
in magnolia terraces
and not want to hit the hell out of bus stops

its progress.
Know that, I have got grit on my feet,
wrapped my shins in sandpaper.

Tell me things;
what was coral, what was salmon,
where did you get to, did you ever wave and think, life jacket.

Tell me scenes,
you in trousers skating German lakes,
booking train tickets in public libraries,

drinking rum on chain swings, holding your guitar like a thesis.
I am going to a town of tapes.