I would want you to have these machines
breathe for me if I forgot your name
and spill memories back into the blank spaces
from which you ebb and flow, going home –
because it could not have been I who
destroyed the person that I require so close.

In every language, I love you
and te amo
and je t’aime and
ich liebe dich and jag älskar dig and miluji tě:
let your city flood my insides, then bleed.

If I could, I would shout from the moon
to make sure the other men know I love you
and though they are beautiful,
their names do not matter nearly as much
to my brain, nor bring goosebumps to
the small of my back and top of my bottom.

My ******* fill your shirts just right –
they do, they do.
I am meant to be inside them
and you are meant to be within me, like air
******* from a windpipe to areolas’ pink.

I would throw my head forward like I do
when I am sad and settle in your lap
entombing my five senses in an aroma of love
we just made. I would lay myself in that
coffin again and again until I recalled
the exact elocution I used to form your name.