all the ice melted in bryant park
and people couldn't skate anymore.



i shrink into my boots
and flick away stray ashes
on the roof of the shambled apartment,
wagging a finger in the air and sliding
down the slanted slope of sloppily placed siding.

it is an exhausted song repeating on the
player. it is too warm for the city and my palms
are sweating into pockets, pleading and pressing fingertips
to glass panes, breathing condensation and longing into placement
of some other vessel.

i cannot find you.

it's not so much an aching. it's more a hollow pinch. i am merely
sifting into dirt and soot and it feels like early march
but just turned winter.
you are late and disaffected how i like it.
if you held the door and were on time
i would lose interest only so fast.

and so i linger by the curtain and peek just often
enough to turn away when you do decide to come back home.
the roof is only minutes from collapsing into me and i am
one cigarette too far into an anxious scramble to the bricks.

shedding layers on the floor where
we last touched and it's a tease of temperature
and imminent demise.
my boots are untied and tearing apart
and my chin rests lazy on my knee.

waiting. not waiting.

if you were any different than how
you appear to me i'd resent you for it.

you get back and we say nothing
lying on the bed in our underwear
beads of water rolling off our foreheads
lacing our fingers in between the webs of our hands,
my hair matted and smelling sweet,
wine spilling on the piano bench.

we turn on the ceiling fan and i count
the speckled birthmarks on your back.
you lay across my lap and our skin sticks together,
moist. intrusive.

it's getting colder but the blankets are beneath us
and you're breathing more rhythmically and i cannot see your eyes.
i crack my knuckles and wrap myself around you.



i smoke in our bed and hate you
just a little bit.
tomorrow will be warm again.

all the ice melted in bryant park
and people couldn't skate anymore.

01/12/2007

Posted on 01/13/2007
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer