the ground beneath us feigns solidity,
and i am humming the only familiar tune
i can conjur.

you are wringing your hands,
folding them over

and over.

i am waiting for ice to break,
you're waiting for a crack in the sky.

everything is a helpless fragility on an unsteady balance.

standing on a slant i can see
the damaging beauty of your split lip
bleeding as though to wax emphatic.

i want to tear you into so many paper shreds
that the only fate left to me
is playing with your pieces.

it's funny how i've spent so much time
memorizing your essence and the way you touch and taste--
the guilty detachment of your hollow stare,
and yet i cannot say for sure the color of your eyes.

i fear they are an unknown stain
and i will waste time trying to reach for a name
to call them.

and you just have to remember
everything.

i'm humming a tune from a song
whose words i can't recall and you are
collapsing into me,

a punctured conscience,
brimming the essential "if."

and we hang over the edge,
legs swinging,
on the perpetual divide.

04/07/2007

Posted on 04/08/2007
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer