I can still taste the chords
as you hummed opera into my throat
- si je t’aime, prends garde à toi

chocolate and last night’s vodka
clinging to your lips
and mine
as your fingers traced the contours
of this carnate landscape,
luxuriating in my valleys

he is marble and nimbus,
and I call myself Pygmalion –
but your teeth scraping my skin
and your fingers knotting my hair
are so
so
real

and even artists have to breathe