On my pillow in broken English
And black ink.
A Fitzgerald quote dances in the breeze of the half-cracked window.
The clothes outside dangle
Hot and crisp from the City’s sun.

This city has its own sun
That beats down hard
Against the pavement.
Hearts beating hard
against the pavement
Of our souls and ribs.

If Fitzgerald was right
Then“they slipped briskly
into an intimacy
from which they never
recovered.”
Slipped                    and  


                 ­                                             fell.


Scars stain our hearts
And knees burn
Like the sun beats down
On the pavement
Of our memories.

But then again,
Perhaps it was Keats that had it right-

BOLD lover-
“Heard melodies are sweet
But those unheard are sweeter.”
Like you in my sweater.

Ode in a Spanish email
Plays on repeat,
Trapped in my head.
It’s that song that keeps be writing
About you
In this little book
Trapped in this little book
Like the etchings Keats admired
Trapped in the moment before
Their first kiss.
Forever trapped,
Lingering in their longing.

I’ll lick the wounds
Of paper cuts
From quickly turned pages
The sour blood of this longing
Tormented by time
“Heard melodies are sweet
But those unheard are sweeter”
Like a nagging child
Taunting-
Thumbs in ears,
Tongue out.

I wish my skin was sewn together
With the threads of that sweater
So you could wear me
Again
and
again.