XVIII.
When the night opens its maw, I need a cigarette,
and my neighbors aren’t home or won’t answer their doors
so I walk to the corner bar where I can get a drink
and change for the cigarette machine. I thought about calling you
and I almost did, but the act of picking up my cell phone
turned the inside of me into a hollow temple, my heart
the abandoned deity, and I held the phone in my hands
for a long time palming it as if it were cold to the touch,
and I stood in the hallway outside my apartment door,
bent over to make my shadow longer, counting
the floor tiles covered in darkness, but I couldn’t dial.
I wouldn’t know what to say anyway, that it’s been months
and it still feels like I’ve been bulldozed and buried,
that I weep for the thick scent of your neck, to trace
the base of your thumb with my fingers, to peel
my damp body from yours after sleep one more time,
but there are too many days of dry wind between us,
the flood that swept the seed away, there is you
crossing the room like a picture sliding down the wall,
you pulling away from me, and my body folding
farther from you. I take my pack of cigarettes back to my apartment
and open the wide window so I can sit on the ledge and listen
to the fights of lovers echoing in the courtyard. We used to do this
when we first started dating and I had an apartment downtown
with a wide window like this one. We’d lie still against each other
in my small bed and listen to the cars passing and people stumbling
home, some laughing, some fighting, and I’d fall asleep
to the sound of your breathing and the moving street. Now,
I try to imagine you with another woman, your chest wet
with the sweat of her thighs, the impression of her mouth on your heart.
