My left wrist wears stone slick
chrome. A watch I brought myself last July.
With a cocked head and quiet
breathing you can make out
the indomitable sweep
of the slender hand, a tiny crocodile
continuously circling.

It’s been weeks, but still
I leave it wound to the wind chill,
the winter.

I’ll be catching a train or rushing
to a meeting when I consult the polished face, 
it is seventeen hours ago—
Minneapolis,
you’re with me all the time.

beenthinking:

Scheherazade by Richard Siken

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

I knew it was the last time because
it was the first time since
the first time I was so nervous
to touch you. Not nervous like,
is accepting an escort to my truck
the same thing as accepting a kiss,
will your mouth recognize mine
from a past life, and will you want to
see me again? No, not nervous like that.

More nervous like the story I told you
when I arrived to keep myself from crying-
how every time I left your place
at midnight or morning I’d scrutinize
the front porches of all the complexes
between your apartment and wherever
I found parking, trying to find the wind chimes
that swirled the score the first time
you kissed me. I never found it. Started
to convince myself I made that music up.

But today, with my arms full
of all the tangible ways I could miss you
I saw them everywhere. Swinging
from awnings, overlooking entryways
those dangling front door jellyfish. I can’t remember
if I told you I thought it meant something.
But I do remember asking if I could
be close to you. When you said yes, I leaned
into you like a wave, but you did not hold me.

You were still and told me to breathe.
I put my ear to your chest and practiced
simulating the slow measure. Afraid to smudge
your white sweater with runaway eyeliner,
I turned and rested against you. Put one hand
on your knee and reached behind my back
to find your free hand and pull it forth.
I tried to make your arm respond, but it hung
like an unfastened seatbelt only long enough
for you to say If we’re going to be friends.
This
can’t
happen.

It wasn’t just the pauses. It was the first time
you spoke to me like that. Blunt and cold
connecting like a baseball bat and I was a piñata.
I leapt from the couch spilling pieces of myself.
I kept jumping in the middle of your living room
trying to shake off how much you meant it.

You told me I could yell at you, call you names
and I shook my head, Why would I ever want to say
those things to you? I asked and you said
a lot of people would.

Walking to my truck I didn’t bother
recounting the wind chimes. Despite the afternoon breeze,
they had the decency
to remain still.

It was a first date, a third encounter. It wasn’t love, it was

possibility. I mistake them as synonymous.

You invite me to sit beside you, wondering aloud

why anyone ever sits across from each other on dates.

We kiss and you say I taste like candy. That night

we were envied by spectators. Not needing back story

beyond the way we looked at each other like fresh

sheets, the dessert tray.

The waiter came to bus our shared plates, and you placed

your hand on my lap like a napkin

Honey, are you finished?

I bottle the thoughtless sentiment which lasts

even after you fail to return my phone calls.

Eight months later and someone else is kissing your elbow.

You lean into his shoulder, breathe in the scent of his t-shirt.

I want to know what detergent he uses, so I can crouch

in the laundry isle with an open bottle accurately hating

Clean Breeze or Mountain Spring.

A year passed and we’re friends now. You seem

happy. You are happy. Though once in a while upon

saying Hello or Goodbye, I’ll remember leather

seats, the stoplights down Central, and the way

you asked permission.