the sale

by Wheeler Light

If between us were a pen 

and one of us were to pick up the pen

and beneath the pen, a piece of paper

blank and waiting to become a contract –

if one of us were to write our name

or both of us in tandem 

our names twisting together 

rhizomatic in the forest of desire –

if the names we wrote 

were ones we were given or ones we chose –

if what we sign could be a choice

and identify us as ourselves more thoroughly

like a leaf does a tree whose bark 

looks like every tree –

if your smile looks like every smile

after the dotted line is signed

which is a smile stained with an orange dot

meaning it will be cut down in days to come 

once you realize what you have signed

also wanted to be more than it was –

if the paper was made from old growth

or in a nursery for only this purpose 

the purpose being to be kept forever

in a safe full of other desires 

attached to other names signed 

with other pens on other days –

whatever forest I came out of 

when I found this perfect leaf last autumn –

it was still a forest 

and this dust was still a leaf. 

Wheeler Light (he/him) received his MFA from the University of Virginia. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in poetry.online, Rattle, Pretty Owl Poetry, and Broadsided, among other publications. He is the author of Blue Means Snow (Bottlecap Press 2017) and Hometown Onomastics (Pitymilk 2018). You can find his work at www.wheelerlight.net.