i couldn’t stop looking at your hands, so pale the street lamps flooded them, lit from the inside
out. i imagined your tendons, the bones that connected finger to knuckle to palm, to my neck.
you found me in the rain. i was lighting up the sidewalk, sipping sweet moscato
while the sky shouldered night. summer drops never felt so cool as they did
when you touched me, when you lipped my ear and hissed.
you laughed when i crossed myself, turned to quiet murmurs while you drifted
up my skirt. i tried not to listen till your tongue slipped, each lick sending a psalm down my spine. i tried
to say a prayer but realized i wasn’t listening. i tried to turn away but felt your eyes pull.
you struck a match with your teeth, same way you struck me. you looked the way i thought He might, if He spent His time in cold alleys, spinning webs and finding
ways to push my back to the bricks.
our pupils were blown wide, hiding blue iris in dark
haze. i remember the beginning of the night, how we tilted
towards the floor and couldn’t figure how to get up again. i lay cheek to concrete and tried
to imagine life without you.
when i met you, i could not stop
blinking. i imagined myself a moon tethered to sun, always floating
in the shadow of your bright.
i’ve been trying not to remember, not to feel them as shiver in my chest, an ache
between my legs. i’ve been looking for a seventh and finding mirrors instead.