I breathe in deep
and feel the moment
glide between my lips
across the short distance
measured by sideways glances
and finger-tip brushes,
Stevie Wonder trickles
through the dancing speaker
next to your foot,
always tapping along;
I smile at you through the haze
filling up this tiny car
as we’re burning more than fingers
and singing along with all our hearts
*signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours!

We take what we want when we need,
a motto I thought we shared
jumping around your living room
singing out to our favorite song,
But you forgot to tell me what you took
and who you took it from.

Still sated from spring blossoms
and a full summer
of multiple jobs well done,
lazy September bees
aren’t supposed to sting.

But here I am nursing my wounds
the second week of school
because you buzzed off with her
less than 24 hours after
pollinating with me.

Criminal Minds* was your favorite and I guessed
chase scenes and FBI agents held its appeal,
but you said what you really loved
was how I buried my head in your chest
at the first sight of blood,
and hid my whole body behind yours
when the masked man appeared,
squeezing you tighter than that little girl
who fell in love with you at the park,
until the credits rolled and I crawled off the bed
declaring I wasn’t even afraid—
a detail I forgot until
the last time we fought
and you complained
in eight whole months
you’d only seen me vulnerable once.

A dark room is the best oasis
from pounding bodies and too much bass,
so we lay on your bedroom floor
gazing up at 99cent cosmic stick-ons,
misshapen galaxies illuminating the ceiling
we’re looking for heaven you explain—

Until your phone lights up,
LED screen erasing constellations
and John bursts through the door
hollering about a lost ****.
You push off the floor—
Heaven is closed for the night.

Here, where it is so easy to dance,
the whole street moves in solidarity
with the silver-haired couple performing
a living room waltz across a public square,
feet crossing and twisting and crossing back
to the sultry sounds of the swaying cellist
and his violin friend, playing not for money
but for the love of it, and of these streets
nestled below the chiming bell-tower,
where fountain water rushes out,
flowing onto marble steps pulsing with life
while old ladies in matching scarves shuffle by
in time with skipping school children
laughing in harmony, and even the prison next door
pounds out La Traviata because here,
where it is so easy to dance,
the whole street moves.

I was still mesmerized by you,
leaning against a faded brick wall
lazily flicking a cigarette
against the 90 dollar jeans
I believed you ripped yourself,

when your mouth opened and all I saw
were those perfect lips, that perfect mouth—
your words hardly registering,
some blasé speech
I bet you pre-rehearsed,

“you know, desperate time desperate measures
and all that jazz—”
with a non-committal hand wave
as if accountability was a fly in the air
you could swat away.

I stared at your hand,
suddenly hopeful you’d choke
on that Marlboro Red,
and realizing the problem with pedestals:
there’s no graceful way to fall off.