I take the pose of the Madonna,
Anguished limbs hanging heavy
Light and dark

The people behind me hold one another tight
but do not kiss.
Your bed is a vacuous portal:
The coordinate points of collapse
Syrup runs down my fingertips and I cannot –

Faulty connection, a subtle messenger of
Uncertain fate
I am the thread, I am the fury
I cut my bangs with safety scissors over
The bathroom sink.
Silence grows, the day falls, spent alongside idle worry and
acute pains
Fading to a dull ache,
a gravitational pull,
Eggs getting cold in the pan
Muscles that atrophy safe from the light of
Afternoon sun.

Right hand blue,
Simon says.
But it’s just you and me on the edge of
observable reality,
you and I and cable television and white walls and
I don’t
I don’t know where to put my hands.

I feel comfortable when we kiss,
Eyes closed
And I open mine first.
Eyelashes, yours,
And again, you are delicate
How someone might love you,
Gossamer and tangible,
But eyes open again you are a stranger,
Distant as the waves in your irises push me,
As the space between your eyelids
Drown me in the static of synthetic rain to fall
Asleep to at night, or whenever you can,
Amplified.
You touch my skin as if it is plastic.

Eyes closed once more we walk,
My hand in silent combat with yours,
Through the trash covered streets to the train.

We kiss on the sidewalk and the ground shakes.