call & response
your eyes flash, startled,
when the words pop from my lips:
i love you. yes. that.
they have been a pearl
worked beneath the patch of skin
you like to tickle
that pearl thought, now sound,
rolls between us as you leave.
unexpected. loud.
unretrievable.
and then your silly smiling;
your retreating form.
these words are no gift;
no bear trap in the soft leaves;
no call-and-response.
they are fact, just as:
your tea’s gettin’ cold, baby.
my silence broke clean.
and now you know this,
in speech, what was already
acted out for you.
perhaps you will run.
or fade. i am not sorry.
i — your part-time girl,
your drop-in consort,
the thing you never asked for —
live to lean my head
to the space above
your dark brow; to catch your lip
between my sharp teeth.
if you don’t want this,
well, then, that is fact as well.
i will make my peace.
but know that, always,
i will keep a room for you
in my strange, wild heart.
