Alyssa Kai

If Alyssa Kai could love me
I would love Alyssa Kai
With a dress whose fabric weave
Falls across her body
A soft peach in a rice sack
Plaited noddingly into music and the strings in a guitar

Alyssa Kai lifted a tree branch
And it turned into a home
I saw a bird's nest on her desk,
I would cross stitch her tattoos
And string them between twigs

Would I could go with her
Though I may cheat with the road
Don't look at my phone and the pictures,
Sunsets over cities and tar like
The Arabic shop windows
Between construction and my apartment

Were I a fraction what I was when I was small
To grow like a tree instead of grafting like a machine
So I could make sense of Alyssa Kai at first glance
The circles on her arms
The guitar in her hands
Who picks her by the armpits when
She's sliding down the wall?
I would be that friend to her,
French fries in a bus station and
Lyrics on her mouth.

The road and Alyssa Kai share a face I yearn for
If I am ever as free
Or honest