i knew you were the one when you were just another
pretty girl in my bathroom mirror
thigh gap and eager-to-please smile just a
golden-lipped canary of the serene morning

and now your arms still go limp when i kiss you
your soul still whispers me to sleep
and when i see you so open in the morning
watering the indoor plants you are my
whole world in baggy sweatpants rolled to your knees
as the sun comes up and sprays golden sparks across
the imitation wood floors of the kitchen
and shatters over the mountaintop

just as summer birds sing symphonies
and bees hum at the window
you too were awake fresh and early
like a lily of the valley petal
glowing in 6am sunlight
beautiful flesh tumbling out
of an old plaid workshirt you wear
on sundays because you say it still smells like me
and you say i'm beautiful with funny looking ears
as i watch you make breakfast from across the kitchen

in this intimate environment we are dancing
like a bubble rising out of the dishsoap sink
halo'd in refrigerator light flowing together
as the morning coffee percolates
i am behind you pushing into you
burying my face in your neck and breathing in
and gently biting you on the shoulder

the sky breaks into veins of yellow cloud streaks
and you run screaming onto the porch
pelvis giggling out into the mellow morning
and of course i follow obediently
undershirt flayed open by a knife-like fingernail
the smell of fresh hay in both our noses

we are taking a summer journey
on feet full of the good earth and eyes
intensely warm under the bleached
colors of this april morning sky we're connected
and still dancing with my hands on your stomach
and your gentle fingers raking through my hair
making the giant white muscle bulge and throb
hosiery being shed like old skin off the snake
of your sun-kissed calves yes my fantasy
is finally made of flesh and colliding with the
soft green velvet bedspread underneath and
your feather-point tongue tickles the
outline of my abdomen shining thick and wet

until the record clicks and asks to be flipped.

She places her book, marked with
a coupon I've been meaning to use,
on the nightstand. She turns the light
out on her side. It's her side, her light.
The left side is mine.

Night.

Night.

We're past clutching love. We're
not married, but I think I know
what it means. It's two lonely
people; it's two sides of the bed.
It doesn't take her long to fall asleep.
I watch her forehead unwrinkle.
I listen as her inhales and exhales
become spaced and even. At this moment,
I do not know her. She's not a woman.
All the inviting curves collapse. She is
a girl breathing in, breathing out.

In a memory she related to me--I think
she related to me--she asks a boy to give her
a turn on a swing. It's toward the end of recess.
She has waited. He says no. This is my swing.
She says it is the school's. He says the school
isn't sitting in it. I can almost remember why
she told me this story or some story like it.

I can't sleep without my fan on. She can't
fall asleep with it. I'll give her a couple more
minutes. I wonder what violence she dreams
of, of what forbidden ecstasy she views in
her private night. I do not know her. She
looks vulnerable, her body now bent in an S shape,
facing away from me. Am I scared for her? Of her?
Still sleeping, she bunches up her comforter;
she brings it to her face. Maybe that's marriage: being
scared for and of.

I turn on the fan. She stirs.

I'm sorry. I'll turn it off.

You can leave it on.

I'll turn it off.

Leave it.

She pulls my arm under her neck.
She brings her bottom against my thighs.

Will you hold me? Just for a second.

I can hold you longer.

Just a second.

she was the kind of person,
who didn't leave me in disgust when i was yelling
and loud
obnoxiously drunk.
she'd watch me mix different types of liquors in my mouth
from her own papas cabinet,
and we'd put the acrid mixtures
in Grateful Dead shot glasses,
and i'd turn up the music
until her mother would come downstairs, and we'd frantically hide the bottles
beneath peach bedsheets, and satin pillowcases,
and pretend i wasn't swaying like the ocean tide in five inch
stilettos.

sometimes i'll laugh
at the time when we were so small
that rooms seemed to swallow us whole,
doorways were caverns,
and glasses of water were lakes.

we'd jump on the bed,
and one time her mother came downstairs,
so mid-jump we pretended to fall asleep;
it didn't work very well.

she's the person who would make me watermelon juice, and bring me almonds
when my head was being kicked
over and over by a hangover,
she's the one who would latch frightfully
and laughing
onto my windblown clothing,
as i drove us full speed down the mountain,
ignoring her screaming of the speed limit.
i knew she loved it.

she's the one who i watched the stars with,
on warm concrete,
talking about what was up there,
in that vast abyss of
emptiness,
devoid of life,
nothing but spinning galaxies
and foreign stars.

we would get into fights;
i smoked too much,
she needed to loosen up more.
i didn't think before i spoke,
she thought too much about things.
i blurted out hurtful words too often,
she was too nice.
we argued with sweaty hands on school buses,
and we'd go swimming naked in frigid water,
angrily treading the river currents
to opposite sides of the beach.

i remember when i kissed a boy
for the first time at her house,
and she was snickering at us
watching from a window,
as we slow-danced
as the sun murdered the sky with burgundy, and we tripped on each others feet.
small, hasty kiss.
he looked longingly at me
over a campfire later,
(i never kissed him again)
she and i fell asleep with smoke in our clothing.
bonfire smoke
turned to cigarette smoke.

she'd scold me for destroying packs
when i had whooping cough.
she'd hide the chocolate in her cabinets,
because she knew i'd eat it all if i got my hands on it.

i'd watch her as she would
look into the eye of a camera,
or glide a brush latched with paint on its short hair,
onto a canvas;
her skin would glow like there were a million suns
tucked beneath it,
her face would open
like a wildflower blossoming in mid-summer,
as she drove her passion
into creating things she was destined to make.

she'd make me do my homework,
i'd make her take a shot.

she'd think about things, smart and calculating,
i'd throw myself into danger, flinging my limbs into the unknown.

she taught me to breathe in,
i taught her to exhale.

polar opposites.

I promised my mother that I would never smoke cigarettes but here I am with you. It seems to be that I am addicted and you are the nicotine, how cliché. I remember in middle school when someone showed me how battery acid melts styrofoam instantly, and that was just one of the many deadly chemicals in those little white sticks. I imagine your touch to be something like that, my skin melting to the bone as you pour yourself over me. It's funny, because I watched my mother smoke for years, when she were upset or anxious she would smoke more to feed her addiction and calm down; I think I may have found my newest addiction. There is something so flammable about you and I will light you over and over again and inhale you because I need a rush. Soon it will turn into a dependency but I don't mind. "I can quit anytime." know I promised I would never touch those cancer sticks but if that was the only form I could find you in, I would smoke a pack a day for the rest of my life.