The moon is a door
to tick marks on our headboard –
act like a bachelor, it says. Pretend this is a new girl.

Your flat tongue on fresh fat
she quivers as if uncovered from a freeze.
My days, she must have. The candlelight keeps
being bit by lightning
then slowly dulls to the heartbeat of an aged hound.

You feel like sunscreen
melted, molding the color my skin –
first red and then black and then a healing blue.

This is what it feels like to be new.