Beneath the couch today I found one of your toenails.
It reminded me of the way your toes once scratched against mine
and I was disgusted because I thought those things resembled
rotten carrots mixed with the stuff I've seen come out of my cat.
It reminded me of the way your hand once brushed mine
and I looked down to see those meaty sausage fingers
carrying on in their meaty sausage way
by spreading grease and filth and must and finger dirt
all over my nice white sleeve.
And then it reminded me of the way I couldn't stand your yellowed teeth
because I knew you didn't like coffee and
that your only excuse was not brushing.
So I looked deeply into that aged toenail found
beneath my couch and amongst some dust
beneath my couch where you sat that once
and I thought this toenail was a portrait of you,
hidden below my couch like the Mona Lisa's missing eyebrows.

But I left that toenail beneath my couch where it fell
the night you took your socks off to show me your tattoo,
the night you kissed me with no socks on,
the night I tasted rebellion in a sockless kiss with yellowed teeth
and sausage fingers in my hair.
Because I stuffed that kiss beneath the couch too
and let it break apart from my foot-life like a carrot toenail.
But that toenail leads me to think that your sausage hands were pretty soft;
that you probably would have liked coffee if you knew I drank it
and then that you were always a working man;
those fingers were proof of a hard day's labour.
So the night you took your socks off for me, could be tonight again
and I'd have the guilty happiness in your sweaty palms I missed before,
then I'd be perfectly okay when pieces of you shed onto my carpet.
But I don't regret the toenail beneath the couch
because at least it's there.