Him I love

in the apartment
moonshine whines
across the windows
like a screaming
siren

calculating
in his sleep
where he lies
deeply, or
my hand
draped across
his face to
block out
the sight

of me
sightless
when I'm around him.

I
love
him

and in my shame,
pale, and nude I
fumble,
press him
closer to
my skin
in our love
making - to
feel him
transcribe my body
into a poem,

into
me.

to
feel
him.

each breath
strikes pin-prick
pains, stabs,
swollen hands
unready to touch
you, aching,

I am
without
you
in this

moment.

haunted.

pleading, and in
my dreams
I listen to each
word and understand
the movement of your
hand at your mouth,
the fixation of
flirtation, your
strength above me
cresting like a tide
underneath my
tongue.

in the apartment
as day bursts out
your cheek is
melting across
my neck.

our language
is aversed in hands
stretched wide around
necks, hips, shoulders;
it is a lyric whispered
in the wide spread knowledge
of things that we
ourselves
never say, but
that others recognize
at once.

a spark, inertia,
eyeliner: bony
fingers cupping
my breasts while
you stare me down
saying
nothing.

it has to do with
nothing; him,
I love, sitting
in the apartment.

it has to do with
how slowly time
slips through my
hands like too
much water; a drowning
drum beat, a
thought, advice

my voice
laughing
your name.

the way I cling
to the thought of you
against me. alone,
always thinking of it,

and now,
in the silence
sighing from it.

him I love
in the apartment;
in the sunlight
before he leaves me;
poised like a portrait
trying to remember
the feeling

before
I
forget
forever.