Let us pretend, beloved, that
this is the skin you wore yesterday.
Allow me to lick the salt from your
lips and I’ll ignore the black dog
who at night, stalks my fire escape
and feasts upon the lull of a sleepless—sleep.
The dog who drags me back from
the cliffs of a steady breath
and bites salt from my lips.

I want to take this dog.
I want to see her —your her—
knot her fingers in its shabby fur,
and flail beneath its jaw.
So I can see the inside of her body—
all thinness—a red delicacy.
I want to see which vein you loved,
so I can know for sure
that you have been there:
the muscle —a tendon— the tightening
of how you were inside her.

But I feel the bloom of your iris
steal into the pound of my chest,
so I forgive how these
hands —broken hands—
never tore through my hair.

My pupils just fill with bowed heads
and pleading wrists
while the dog gnaws
at the break of my ankles.

And in this little moan of bloodied floor
and sodden wood,
the kiss of your mouth
grazes my neck’s snap—
your fingers trickle up my thigh

into a little pool of Never Enough.

You had tried to warn me about the time
the power line snapped
while all the birds were asleep—

but the dog had torn my ears from me by then.