The girl you loved disappeared last night.
She stepped off the curb and vanished.
Following pulsing pavement,
reaching towards a green light
like Gatsby across the water,
she slipped away somewhere between streets.
Got tangled up in a stranger’s sheets.

Went home without her,
weighing less.
She used to lay awake and think of you
singing Barry White in the shower
and calling her baby,
but not since last night.
She became a fog
that glistened like snow in streetlamps
or a molten metal rain.
Slowly, she gathered herself into a backbone,
and cemented to my spine.

We crawled out of the pools
of your quicksand irises,
and walked away.
You called her name as we crossed the bar,
but when I turned around
you did not recognize me.