I washed this cup with your hand soap,
water as hot as the handle would turn.
Scraped pieces of dandelion cut with licorice
the taste of a fingernail after bruising you
with a snowball aimed at the barest branch.

When you come home I will keep this pose,
flat in this curdled skin, mix your drink
of roots all shredded up, feels like dust going down.
This thumping faucet, useless bathing.
Like spitting on a chalkboard, no consistency.

I detox while I pin up an extra curtain.
In this quiet air of midnight, under the choke of fog.
In my mind you smile by the winter lake with me.
When you return, we'll learn how to ski, how to laugh
when we're insecure, just gliding through on a thin blade.

I took your cup to the laundromat.
Couldn't leave it alone until I was sure
a single faint line of glue was strong enough.
So when you come back up the hill to these
lucid dreams I can't explain, you will not see broken things.

You will not have to step over socks, cans,
plates of old potatos from the box.
I've shut myself in to flush the silence out.
From this bed you dragged me from, during those muddy
summer months.

11/06/2006

Posted on 11/06/2006
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