It is late at night somewhere
plain and dusty as he grabs my hips,
pulls me in, and kisses my
stomach. I touch him back.
Cheeks first, tracing all the
way down to his upper lip,
Then my finger circles back and lands
on a fallen eyelash
on the bridge of his nose.
I try picking it up but it won’t stick.
“It won’t stick,” I tell him to move
away from the flickering light.
I pinch it away from his nose and hide
it between my thumb and forefinger.
“Make a wish,” keeping the hermetic seal.
When he opens his eyes and smiles at me
(I like it when he smiles that wide, the canines and all)
I make him choose a finger. “Up or down?”
He taps my thumb. I open.
The hair is wedged between the whorls of my forefinger
— it means his wish won’t come true.
He gives me a sad, sad look.
The wind blows it away from
my fingertip. He pulls me in again,
my rough denim sliding up against his
thighs, spread open. I lose balance
and out of sheer reflex I grip his shoulders,
bare and drenched in night sweats. I wipe them off
with the cuffs of my jacket.
I brush his bangs to the side
and slide my finger across one of his sideburns,
which feel like new toothbrush bristles.
He asks me to exhale directly onto his eye.
He wants know if it would turn his vision foggy,
like when exhaling on glass. I tell him to shut up.
I tell him I want to ride a taxi home for once,
even though it’s just blocks away from here.
Inside the taxi, he barely looks my way.
He’s propped close to the window
blowing cold air and drawing *****.
I feel a need to check the time.
I feel a need to put his mouth on my mouth.
Then I think of wanting rain, of wanting all sorts of disasters
to smite our naked bodies as we slither
up against each other on the last floorboard
floating on top of this flooded city.
But I close my eyes instead. Trying to guess
what his wish was.