We sit on the edge of the bed
too high
on its milk crate box spring,
sliding toward its edge
on jersey fabric blue sheets
that are impossible to sleep on
for their uncanny ability
to coil around legs and arms,
passing the piece and conversation.
The rug comes and goes
as it pleases, a striped long haired,
four legged sprite
scuttling along the floor boards and
occasionally pausing on its errands
to wonder aloud
in its clipped crip walking voice sounds
at the four feet
hovering above it.
The wall behind your face
keeps tight to your edges,
but never tight enough
to make me believe
you are not a late addition
to what is here and now visible,
a very badly edited photo,
a vacation I took alone and set a timer to,
propped on my desk,
a sand colored sunset along a stony beach
that thought it would look better
with you in it and made
last minute corrections
before the time for "having a blast
wish you were here" Christmas cards
at the office rolled around.
"Are you here, in me,
like I'm here, in you?"
Every time you move
the air drags around you like spilled
oil paint until it pulls thin,
tissue paper wet, cotton thread taut,
tearing with the sound of velcro.
I can barely make the words, gunned
from your moving lips, match speeds
close enough to read but,
my fingers grazing your palm
as I place the ball of hot glass there
gives me the cliff notes and I smile
because I can
still hear you
above the noise and distance,
feet dangling to a wood planked ocean,
a woven paisley tortoise, and
the sun in our mouths. "Wish you were here."
