In the thick
of an evening I let myself
curl around the edges
of your finger, laid
unkempt across the luster
of oncoming night.

This untangling of fingers
and re-braiding of words feels
effortless and blunt, like the cut
of your lips against
matted hearts;
tousled eyes;
layered hands.

what if the lion made love
to the sheep?
or was the sheep too weak
to love and let love and let wear and let hold—
or just strong enough? I can’t
remember.

I never heard
myself cry out
loud. It was always
silent. As if you
never heard me.
As if you weren’t
even bothered.

“Stop.” She pulled back.  
“It hurts.”She contorted
“No." She pushed and in her
head she heard a voice—soft and
sinister. Not powerful enough
to be her own.
Relax,
baby girl,
relax.
It couldn’t have been
aloud. It was gentle and
intrusive and she hadn’t known
it was there. It stroked her
cerebellum, tickling
her larynx and falling
just short of a scream. She fell
just short of the bed and collected
herself among the sheets
and their refuse.

I never heard
her actions nor the motion
of her language.
She was silent always
and always screaming.

It's a loneliness
of passion that makes me
want you tonight, at twoAM --
or the breaking
of dawn-- cracking
the proverbial egg
of the morning with you over
tea, toast, and your temperament.

It's funny how my legs don't work
like they used to,
and their smile is all
but a glimmer of some instant trapped
in the backseat of your car.
With just enough legroom
for 2.

I've never done this
before. I've never
done this
before.

It felt sinful to cry
in front of you: my agony.
the woman I had
wronged. So many times,
in so many ways,
with so many words. They were false
truths I hadn’t meant to mean. Yet
somehow, along the way,

I had picked
them up and whisked them away
in my bag, your baggage and everything

else that had marred me.
A scratch
across the glass of my
actions: your face. I hope you can see
past the fog of my deviance. I’ll draw
a smile in the condensation, blurring the
cadence of an attitude—the pure
and their righteous, the demented
and their sin—to make a clearer picture
from this polaroid dangling, overexposed,
from the edges
of our friendship—the soft curve of a lie.

It tastes so smooth, rolling
up through my tongue. It sounds so bitter
wafting out from your throat.

I used to write
about women,
looking in the mirror, peering
out from behind the bars of these walls.

I used to see them
in the kitchen,
by the stove, seated:
docile at the table. Their chairs
were always a little
askew--drawn back--
or maybe they just weren't there.

They'd wash--no scrub--
their hands among the dishes
until their manicures bled.
Then they'd stack the porcelain
in a heap out by last night's
******* and tomorrow's
cleaning.

Sometimes they'd smile
to themselves; a chuckle of menial
labor. But other times they'd cry
and groan and moan out the next
generation of household
women. I used to see
them everywhere. I wonder where
they've gone.

I taste your lips like the cotton candy
of a Newark sky, laced
with smog and dysentery. You lift
me up, roll me over and draw
me toward you. The gravitational pull--
'on my hair and tell me you love me'--
of your shoulders
and the intoxication of your
voice. Craning my neck
to hear--'you love me'--the grip
of your hands
on my throat.

The city is loud. Just
loud enough to gasp
through the static
of your car radio, pressing--'up against
me'--all the buttons.
Just change
the station. Where we rock
and undulate smoggy windows and
candied skies.

This last goodbye
tastes different from
my first time, clutching--
'my back and etching out lullabies'--
the shift stick. Put it in
neutral. We can just coast
from here and take it
easy--'she's so'--easy. Easy
falling into and letting fall and keeping--
'next to me forever'--from falling
over and over the bricks
of your building, shaking
the foundation, the exact
same way. You loved me

like a super dome and expanded
the words of your cityscape: a nice
addition, in need
of renovation.  The cycle of
recycled buildings and veiled skies.
The monotonous gossip
of a Newark morning drawn out
past the night.