10:00 am. How
is it still dark?
In a forest.
Top bunk. The hint
of apocalypse
In his sleeping face, the
world away.
I come down the ladder,
foot landing light on
the floorboards.
Cocooned in a blanket
as I head toward the porch.
There’s no roof. Only screen doors,
wireframes, a platform. Can’t
call it a house yet.
To the lake I go to meet the Fish.
The second I get there, it shoots out from the water,
Telling me,
“your clock is broken.” Then it plops back in.
I leap and return to our “house.”
With military precision and speed, I reach the top bunk.
But in my rush, I stop and see
His strange face, still asleep.
I ****** the clock from the wall.
I wind it back to 7:00 am. Then the sun
Comes up.
I go to him.
I lay with him.
I put my hand over his belly,
feeling it falling and rising
as they replenish with air.
He begins tossing slowly.
And I hear the growl.
The sandpaper breath.
The thing you do
to get the morning out of you.
And on cue,
his eyes open, seeing me. There is a moment
when he doesn’t recognize me. Then it registers:
I am a person he knows. We are in bed.
It is morning. This is the only place we belong in.
There is nothing to worry about. Everything is correct.
The hierarchy of details worm their way in shortly thereafter:
Weather—sunny. Temperature—a bit cold. Feeling—hungry. Taste—dry.
Soon the wub wub wubs heard through his grogginess
dissolves into clearer, more articulate ambients.
With nothing out of place, finally,
he looks at me. I can see he knows me.
I can see he knows I’m obsessed with his skin.
I want to eat it. I want to wear it.
I want to burn it then inhale it.
My lips glide over his chest;
his knuckles rub my ribs,
like police dragging their batons along prison gates.
Finally, he asks the thing he always asks,
a question I always fear.
“What time is it?”
I say what I always say.
“The time is right.”