I asked the love inside me
to sleep but not to die.
To fly like swallows at sea,
give me peace,
but please,
be homesick.

I asked the love inside me
to relent it’s doping up
like an Indian Luna
discarding the moon
for daylight.

I asked would it be stoic,
Drown the sun for just a day
and hang dark over street-signs
that have anagrams of her name
or point to wherever she sleeps.

I asked the love inside me
to keep the love-bites
in my capillaries
lest they phosphoresce
like the backs of cuttlefish.

I asked would it be patient
to shine them later,
as inkblots, reminding me
of what the softness
of her lips can do.

I asked the love inside me
to remember and not to hope.
Keep our room everlasting
alight with music,
and like my love,
my own.

there’s lipstick kissed filter tips
and roaches made from textbooks
littering the ash-hardened carpet.
The lift of bra strings over collarbone
tracing a mole
meeting like the Saone and Rhone there.
Hungover afternoons
where the heat stays asleep in the air
circulating with our radiance
as if our hearts fill the whole space.
The time moves glacially
like we’re children
having nothing to compare it with
but the length of hair
and the states of cliff faces.
Two stillborns
meeting in the afterlife.

The first time
and the last time
and all the love in between
is alive.