Otsego County
–Neil Hilborn

You have come here, out of the rain
that is your life’s work, and you find instead

that this is your life, this right here, this girl
you are kissing who you have flown

across the country to kiss; if our lives
are made of the moments we are

supposed to experience and the moments
we use to avoid those moments, then your life

is built from those running away times, those times
in which you were actually happy as opposed to

just saying you were happy, your life
is made of suitcases: you are, in fact,

a suitcase: you are built to hold
only what you need and as what you need

becomes what you needed you empty
and fill yourself and you have come here,

out of the rain, mostly full already,
full as can be expected from an emptier

such as yourself, and this girl, this girl
of sun hair and the always fingers, this girl chromatic,

this girl who is enough you to know you
but thank god not enough to be you, this girl

is filling up the last, not desperate
but almost, before unfillable bit.