before I was sorry, I was scared.
I wanted you terribly and
the drip-drop nights kept coming,
knocking from within the frame.
you say I look at you with finality;
in this life, I can’t promise to be
anything but. the mazarine still
wriggles when I blink too fast.
through plight and pleiade
our diptych folds, from that slip-
road down lamlash crescent
where I run out of somewhere-elses
and find you like I find vanishing points,
on my torn-up hands and knees. it’s okay:
last year I was barely a tree, a tightrope.
my skin heals taut and lustrous.
I stash in my mouth a third heart;
it swells when you’re listening
and that’s why I get so lonely,
why I can’t make a sound.