“ablate”, New Year’s Day

James Bowden

after Maggie Smith; for Maggie Sui

To ablate is to remove, whether by
erosion or evaporation, by choice or by chance.

My friend sent me that word. She
and I have only truly begun to touch each other

within the last month, but
already she knows loving an other

means loving what their existence evokes
from your own–the songs you hope they haven’t

heard before, the verbs that roll velvet
off your tongue and only now have an address

to be addressed to; the way your headspace is
no longer all your own but a little less lonely for it.

Let me love my cold brain’s leaking.
Let me love you the way I love my self,

less an active act of love than a
simple statement of being,

and the world the way I love you. I know
there is no space for beauty in this new year

without the erosion of the old, I know
you will be but warm vapor seeping slowly

from my ear come next January, but for now, please,
let me love the building up of all these beautiful

words
without mourning the silence their ablation will leave

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Draws from Maggie Smith’s “Rain, New Year’s Eve” and “Good Bones”. Kinda for some other people too, in spirit–perhaps Athena, Antonia, Sujai–perhaps everyone who has helped me feel a little bit less lonely.