and your eyes like marmalade and stretched blue skys:
it was only a whisper, forget it. like old cd’s on repeat and her hand shaking,
2005 in blacker sharpie on her nails. that’s time:
tipping back your head for the thickening music
that scratches across the widening sky and she buries
her head into your coat. like
her breath on daylight she shakes
her bra out in the shower and sharpies bleed out of her
and into the drain: that’s cynicism. especially her in the olive green sweaters,
especially the concrete bridge where she made love to
strangers, the VCR tapes unwinding so physically in your eyes that she
slapped you, that she ate your technology along with her foodstamped
pears. the black nails biting into fruit skin: that’s memory,
also maybe love. her eyes: you can’t remember but you’re
sure they were there, on her face, like she was human or something.