I knew it the moment you looked at her.
The tender slip in your jaw line
fall faint with a smile
showing teeth like secret treasures
in your worn leather chest.

Her hawaiian hello tasted sweet on your lips.
Hot pink tank top ribbed in rings
around her tiny waist,
flat, tan stomach peeking between
her top and dark short, short jeans.

She followed you to the parking lot
after you passed her on the curb.
Her tip toes visible underneath
the lift of a 2014 model truck between tires,
rise and fall,
leaning back into her heels when you set her down
shadows behind tinted windows.
I saw it all.

In my dreams, I pretend I made it up.
Cuddle next to an empty side
trace the moon's sideways outlines
on the sheets.
Breakeven.
I knew it the moment you looked at her.

The red shirt is torn,
an eyelash ****,
your skin exposed
but no blood.
You were born for this.

I dig in my silver weapon,
sever your synapses.
With each new cut
comes a soggy cream sheet
and you sigh and you sigh.

It was inevitable.
Fixed smiles
flop from your spine,
see-saw on the board
and form a wrecked star.

Now just your teeth,
the brown raindrops.
I use my thumb
to tug them out,
dislocated, then gone.

He pointed to the 4'' by 7'' framework
with two teenage girls faces pressed
against hers, an overbearing smile in the background
of a boy caught in the mist of poor lighting
and ******, drunken photography.
She told him about the field
laid green and black blades wet
from central PA rain and smashed,
meshed clumps of mud sticking to the rubber mazes
on the undersides of old work boots.
How the fire billowed over hazy introductions
and pressured joy of seeing someone no one
really ever wanted to see again.

She told him about the drive with two girls,
how many stops
it took to reach the county party
and how many times she counted the circles
on her thumbs before she was distracted
by another person wanting a picture or another beg
for a beer.
She laughed as she reflected, glancing up at the photo
then back at him as his hand
lay between the crease of her *** and thigh.


He was from Durham and didn't get it.
But she painted it so vividly with her tongue
as it danced over the summer memory
that he felt he could be there
if he let himself.

She unwound for him like a yo-yo
to which only he could pull her back up again.
Unaware that she mindlessly
let him control all the strings.

As she talked, jumping from picture to picture,
he noticed her leap frog
from each. She skipped three or four in the middle,
and even thought it seemed
as if she could open with the press of the right button
there were still some things she wouldn't let him
really see.
She held her breath when the story turned bad.
He saw her eyes balance on the phrase,
he now noticed, she carefully chose next.
She was no outburst. This was no plea.

She had a plan and undoubtedly knew
all that she wanted him to know.

As she flipped to the next page
he counted the seconds between the pauses
and moved his hand to her shoulderblade.

There are so many poems
I could write
if only
you were not an ocean away
but your eyes are like
a ripple into the sea
and the words you've held on to
left your body
shipwrecked and crinkled

If only your fingers
could find mine
underneath the ocean
underneath the surface
beneath the soil
the fire the land
where reality fills a gap
where imagination
sinks in

The world may pull
you from your sleeves
but Atlantis
can reach you
from the weakest parts
of your knees
to the lines on your
lips

There are so many poems
I could write
if only
you were not an ocean away
If there was an alternate universe
I would be writing
your name across the
spider web stars

I would dig into the deepest
parts of your mind
where you keep all
of your bad thoughts

I would collect each of them
with my bare hands
and I would remind you
"this is how I fell in love
with you."

One day when you're lost
And you do not want to live
Just remember me

The pendency of emotion trickles through your winding hair ocean air greets a wave from the window a pause at the base of your spine you're mine lady you cause subtle tensions to rise I surmise the locus of tension: your eyes.