the Turkish coffee cup
shards on the floor
draw blood.that delicate porcelain
holds eighty-two years of life,
wrinkled hands, cardamom
coffee-stained
smiles and desert air;
a shattered mirage on
hard, cold kitchen
tile.a thousand fangs,
they draw blood and make
home in the soles
of my feet.
you moved out of here long ago.
the autumn leaves scrape
the sidewalk and i
remember the first time
you said my name,
the way it rode the October winds.the windows are open
in your old bedroom.
air in one, out the other,
and I wonder if
any of the molecules
sitting on the
empty dresser have been in
your lungs. my heart
seems heavier than these drawers,
hands searching for
something, anything. your scent
in any form
and suddenly
i am standing
in the cul de sac outside
your driveway, watching you write
to me with the flowers
in your garden; breathy lullabies
of roses,
sweet and rotting.
you smell different
when you’re awake: slightly less
of dewy dreams, slightly more
of espresso machines
behind the counter where
our hands touch when you give me
my change
and call me ‘Sir.’
I sit at my table from
noon till two while you bus tables,
thinking of all the poems
I could write about just your eyes:
so goddamn
wide, with the whole world
still in ‘em.it’s Tuesday– your shift ends at four,
and i think about how you will
take the bus to your apartment
downtown; how you’ll put your
stocking feet
up on the coffee table while you
drink wine and watch
Gilmore Girls reruns on the CW.
How you’ll fall asleep, empty
glass in hand, dreaming of
versions of a future life in
a world i do not exist in.i will go home and drink
malt liquor with my dinner
while listening to NPR,
and fall
asleep to the
smell of dew and you
saying my name as our
hands brush together when you
reach for mine.the smell of burnt
espresso and
the sound of your voice
(it always seems
so much softer in my dreams)
in the morning
will wake me up
to the continents in
your eyes
and i will only be able to smile
as you
hand me my change.
Silenticel 