your morning breath ricochets
off my cheeks, you're still
drooling dreams into my pillow
my warm, bulky down comforter
hoarded around your petite frame
as i spit my sanity into the ceiling fan
i glance down at you
your face is somewhere else, painted on a canvas
i move a lock of hair behind
your still-sleeping ear with a fluid
passage of fingers and wrist
my thoughts pumping
into the margins of this dusty room

you are a man's sister and another man's daughter
but all mine last night in the bathtub
beneath the skylight my grandfather built
as southern stars too thick for constellations
sang into our laughing faces
and again on the kitchen counter top
my **** made of steel and flint
neither of us minding the extra weight
our sweat became fire and water ripples
as we stumbled into bed like birds
confused by the strobes of spanish candles
forgetting to fly

sunrise dispenses glassy light
deep into my mouth as i dance
across a wet morning swaddled
in awkward feathers and
you appear as a statue in wine colored velvet
struck by light from the bay window