Awakened in a strangers bed
by a breeze through a skylight
dusting traces of rained-on geraniums
and newly cut grass across my face.

My lips taste like salt-rimmed margaritas
when I lick them and the flames
from giant candles that danced
and flung our mad leaping shadows against the walls
the night before have all blazed out,
cried themselves into waxy puddles
overflowing into a stolen hotel ashtray
full of half-smoked cigarettes.

The comforter slides off,
silk whispering as it pools on the floor
and I am naked beneath,
hips dotted with tiny bruises from fingertips,
hairy belly still sticky with release
and I wonder what possessed me hours earlier
to so savage the worm,
that ridiculous prize
lying at the bottom of a tequila bottle.

I could die of thirst.

I spy our spent casings on the night table and remember.
Thrown clothes, then skin.
Reloading during the battle.
The hot breath of secrets over a white-flag pillow
when the cease-fire came.
Then no sounds at all.
Adrift in a shamble of blankets,
sleepy kisses till dawn.

I hear the shower turn off
and remorse sets in
making me wish hard for mints,
a better memory than this,
the removal from my chest
of that hive of angry bees
grieving a dead queen,
and God only knows who’ll walk
through the door so I brace myself.

Wrapped in sheets, I wait.