Thoughts on a Tuesday Evening

Feet over denim peaks and cotton valleys: blue
and white, white, though I wouldn't know. Light against
the ceiling stops, then nothing. Blinds
every shade of grey glow,
not by orbiting comrades, but the
non-stop twenty-first lantern
perched outside. It's either a guide
or a warning not to be mischievous
here. Shin hits mattress, jack-knife forward
into reach. Folds of folds
from last night, sheets unwashed, and a leg
on forbidden territory. Overtop and
underneath and then, only then, comes
the exhale. My whole eye a thing
of blackness on everything light: that
in the closet, there, that doesn't belong. And you,
an elbow in my pillow-space, head
at my shoulder, absent. Your body
is a heartbeat, a ritual of spasm and lull. I am
alive, you say, and my chest
responds with a rise. I guess blood
never settles down until it's
dead. Cells finally unite: stagnant
proposals to disintegrate
together. I want to decay on top
of you, so our bone marrow can
mix. Future scientists will call
our sex undetermined. My hands around
your forearm now, cradling
conversation we didn't have. If only I could
speak. Our veins bump against
another and intervene.



One day I will not stumble in the dark
to reach you, hours unconscious. I will
have a lamp that dims, and a bed
to myself. My arms will not extend, my legs
will curdle. I will not think of
lanterns or light, but will only wait to see
whether the age-old sun will choose to rise,
as it always did.