Where We’ll Be

The war wonders how it will end.
My arm, a pinata stick, will be there
to meet you. The equation says: break.
Our minds, quiet hives of loneliness.
Where we’ll be, there will be dark.
The stars gather, the cartel.
All the parties necessary to a surgery.
Heartbreak is tired, and useless, and kind.
The scar rubs where the heart was.

And You

It doesn’t take long to drown. After you left, the ocean.
An octopus brooding for years. I missed you, lungs
filling with water. I was plugged into our love, the way
an addict is with her pipe. A flower, its hush of pollen
hitting the desk.

August

We wear costumes to bed to celebrate
our survival, from the orchid bud falling
onto the glass table to the plane
crashing somewhere east of our
small apartment. We have not touched
in weeks, our clothes stained
from sweat, voices ground to a hush
because every time we raise them,
we fight. The neighbors have sent
little notes of complaint. The morning
is fragrant and damp. Summer does
not hesitate to beat us into
submission, two flat skins lying
in bed. I am writing this to remind
myself what it is I know about love.
Everything is small here, from
the birds stretching their mouths
like rubber bands, to the trees
outside our apartment that were just
planted a year ago, not quite as tall
as my shoulders. I will learn
soon to un-love you, but not now,
in the middle of August, the promise
of change thick on my tongue as a new
tooth.