Linger

I.

How you lost the keys to your apartment,
I never remember. Only you half-naked
and draped across my single bed
linger. In my insomniac psyche,
your head tilted ever so slightly,
you look at me wanting

the space between your parted lips, praying
to possess the first syllable when finally
you sacrifice silence to longing.

The number of times you mouthed
my name, I couldn’t tell you.

How many words you used to explain—how
you didn’t want to kiss me, how
you wouldn’t slide your tongue along
my reddening lips, how you couldn’t
let it slip you liked it—
I lost count. You talked a lot

between kisses. Your hands framing
my face, your lips pressing an urgent
message: must we talk about it.


II.

It wasn’t a question, so I took it as a rule.

How your body moved, certain and seeking,
beneath my trembling hands was a secret.

How you said my name
and came to me, your mouth
wide open and sounding out was a skip
on the record player.

Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.
Ain’t nothing like the real thing.

We slow-danced on the fire escape.
Beneath the cloudy moon, our shadows moved,
dark curtains parting, coming together again.

I wanna do something wild, you said.
You unbuttoned your shirt,
gyrated your hips and sang.

And it began to rain, as if
even the heavens were willing
to abandon restraint, to shed shame.


II.

Because she was hungry, I waded
a flood from my apartment
to the pizza hut with a puny umbrella
and an overdrawn checking account.

I bought a six-pack with coins and stole
sandalwood incense from the corner gas station.

I half-dragged her—drunk—along
the city sidewalks while she stumbled,
slurred how she loved me.

I held her long curls while
she retched adolescent excess.

I undressed her,
bathed her face,
her neck,
her hands and arms,

and I dressed her with bed covers,
colored pink, announcing
springtime and girlhood.

Her alcohol kisses, mute promise:
she loves me.



III.

For her, I was kisses behind the storage shed
where we lengthened beneath the sun,

our shadows, two tongues,
dark twins against corrugated metal,
our half-embrace a mere trace
of how tempting the forbidden lips
the color of ripe cherries and
the candied taste of our mouths.

I was her one bad habit.

She toked on me. Slow-burning,
I was smoke she drew into her lungs
and momentarily held, exhaling
me, a grey cloud and then
letting me twist from her fingertips.

And I was a whisper in a dark movie theatre.

My involuntary hand sought
hers. Stop, she said, softly,
and smoothed my still palm, as if
pity might calm my restless breath.

Don’t make a scene, she pleaded, later
as we walked along the deserted street:

I didn’t mean to lead you on.

I seized her arms with both hands then,
held her beneath the streetlamp: Look at me,
and mean it when you say it, I demanded.

And she did: I’m sorry.
I’m sorry, and she kissed me again.


IV.

How you lost the keys to your apartment,
I never remember. Only you
half-dragging my grief along
abandoned streets linger.

Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.