I meant for you to think about it
on the next train-ride home
how I would have said it
if I illustrated how remedies
for a lonely Tuesday evening
come in the way you wake
the little hairs in my ear
through transmission towers and
soft-breathed cues.

but my moxie doesn't come
in a big enough wrench, so I remain
wherever (if ever) I operate
in the mechanics behind your smile,
at least cherishing the reassurance
in seeing that you get to know
the best parts about your happiest days
(because it was long overdue.)

and as I do, I mean to
so that you could see
within the inarticulate man
that where I adore you,
I instead let your feet
take you as you please,

knowing better than I let up
that I meant to say I don't really
have any plans for the summer,
but I'd rather be sitting on your stoop when
June rolls along and my feet are
twenty-two years exhausted,

and my heart another year swollen
from hearing how you say my name
and keeping it a secret between me
and my fear that it is not
how you intend to say it.

Like you were a first trip to NYC,
or a perfect view of the cosmos
from that clearing on Sylvan Avenue,
I was agape and fawning while you sauntered
out from your double doors, to the end of your driveway,
to where I rocked on my heels eagerly
on Allen Dr. at 6:23

Come 7:15, we bedecked your body
with stripped and frayed Armani
in tribute to the Walkers we've seen;
cool-white fluorescence drew emphasis
on the harmony between your ivory simper
and each cobalt marble that rolled
and flicked beneath your tuckered eyelids
by some sort of beatnik artistry.

Frankly, my chest swelled with fever
when I noted the scrunch of your nose
askance to liquid-latex applications,
or the way black cherry sap wept
from the corners of your mouth
while dislodging the blood-capsule
in-between your molars
and your stately, hollow cheek at 7:50

And I noticed around 8:00,
when I had slowed you to a halt
near the crosswalk on Montauk
between Coastal and Le Soir
to fix the scar-tissue on your chin,
that if I ever knew there to be one,
you made a most stunning zombie
with my Tom & Jerry cap lining your scalp;

Which made the stain left by the makeup
worth the trade of my hat
in exchange for your company,
as we picked up a twelve-pack
at the 7-11 just down the street
before we returned to the party.