Originally published in Punch Drunk Press
We eat legs at a table for two under clouded light
and I almost think we make accidental eye contact
but I end up cemented in your thick winds
because everything else is cigarette smoke
and static heat under unpunctured overcast
except your horn-curled smile
and sharp bones
and even if I blow away the noise
I won’t get close, I’ll be inflated
with infinite lack, and I can’t believe
the mania folded within your laugh lines
your dress full of gust and tulip petals
and I can see it in natural motion
from across the table.
I’m stuck behind my eyes when I pour wine
through your famous lips and the server
breaks the animal between us
and we both widen, vulnerable
as loose blood
and as you drink I see
the vastness of your mouth
and maybe you
are not savory
but there is your hectic pepper hair
ready to swing away and it hurts
because I will never be able
to explain this over our separateness—
your absorbing storm, all the answers
ripped from bent limbs, blown
away and swallowed
whole.
But what if you become sweet
acetaminophen, a delicate medicine
I imagine as a relief, a reduction
a great dissipater of malaise
and when we finally finish
and match our pointed pupils
isn’t it like a bird
dancing with
a fly trap?