proposed with a ***** glove,
i said yes every time.

we'd do it again & again...
just for fun, or maybe more.

said if you were the king
then that would make me your queen--

always have been.
i believed you.

i wish that we could do it again,
a little rain never hurt anybody.

bruised my knuckles
knocking on your door

for so long
you wouldn't answer

but i was the one
who had the spare key

all along
and you knew it, too

won't listen to the songs
for they might make me call you.

that isn't the problem
but the possibility that you wouldn't want me to.

a dozen bells
could they possibly be you?

of course not, it's just that
'THERE IS A PERSON AT YOUR GARDEN'

the neighborhood cat
that occasionally makes the most beautiful bread

won't you just call...
so that i wouldn't have to

even if it's to say one word?
even if the word is no?

there's a house where the basement you almost drove us into used to be. the night you'd skip songs that were almost over. if i were one of them, would you let me play through the end?

night shadowy shades of grayish green, flashes of red across your face, a fist always close to your chin. always beautiful even when you shouldn't be.

the sound of you moving is enough to get me going. fabric on fabric like distant music only i can hear.

suddenly your face is everywhere and nowhere. in cars that look like yours but aren't. strangers now familiar features, head-turners and double-takers. it's always been you, even when it wasn't. even when i didn't know.

i was looking at those photos, too
only i was me instead of you.

sitting at the dinner table,
leg on the chair the way mom doesn't like.

grayness of the day fueling my need
to bend towards the sun & take you with me.

but you're just there, in faded photos
of yellow hallways & broken jars of horseradish, scattered into bits across an icy floor.

you're right where i left you
& you're always right here.

you kissed the back of my neck
i grazed the divets in your palm--
doughy with cold sweat in a white t-shirt

you asked me to tell you
what i want
using only one word--

you...us.

thick scent of incandescent light
escaped me to intoxicate you again--
it was a bad dream because it wasn't real