boy, you look like acid-wash
and smooth cold
on a pointed fang
grown inward.

i like the way you move your face
away from the light so i can only see
your eyes in shadow.

kind of like an innocent
in clothes that smell like wood-kiln, faint.
blossomed from the bud of someone else's broken thorn.

drink up swollen morcels on the rim of
empty jugs. the droplets
tickle your tongue in a way
that can only tease.

we don't even really get drunk anymore,
we drink for the hollow burn.

everyone will tell you different things
in the heat of a windowless room,
where cigarette smoke enmeshes itself and collapses into whisps,
someone is undressing, we look away to be polite.
we try to think of things to say that won't disrupt
the open wound of bared flesh swaying.

sometimes when you sweat onto someone else's body
it may as well define the sort of intimacy that implies you were
already lovers.

i brushed the condensation off my brow,
licked my finger and fell across your lap
vibrating against the speaker.

02/23/2007

Posted on 02/24/2007
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer