with tobacco sitting open
in dusty papers on our kitchen table,
still warm from the glow
on your mint and cedar skin,
and with the sky cloudy and quiet in our window,
you kissed my crooked mouth
like the ghost hand that held the door open for you.
Heartache is an actor,
mumbling his soliloquy on the wide empty stage of my tongue
while the people in the back complain that they can't hear.
when people speak of a love not returned,
if you're lucky,
you can still hear a thin warm ribbon of blood
wrapping around teeth,
almost undetectable,
and the name hangs heavy in the room
like silver tinsel after christmas
if the still oozes hot, black heartache
or else it is a wound that has scabbed over.
the lover is left lying like
a ribbed dog on a dry path,
summer's dust coating organs and throats
purple and bruised,
church bells ringing through tall grass.
but you heard every word that Heartache was saying.
you smarted away from me,
as if I had bitten you.
I think maybe
you could taste all of this war
waging among the rafters
in the high ceilings of my mouth.
and all I could taste was copper pennies
for months after you left.