My boots were cooling
after tough reentry
from the upper atmosphere and
your cigarette was a centipede of ash
black tailed.
The scarf my ex gave me was around your neck and
I was on my way to the floor to sleep or swim
on elbows toward the door.
"I have to wake up tomorrow."
"I have to wake up now."
"I can't."
"You can."
"Where is my damn wallet? Come on, beautiful!"
"No!"
The snow was no deeper than any other December.
I remember the long stumble home. The coffee table
going on its side. The ashtray smacking me in the eye
still in your hand when the lights went out in yours.
Her words repeating through your still mouth.
Touching you is like petting a horses nose.
Spooked every step of the way and
remembering your gray rooted dreadlocks and
chain smoke rumble laugh and
how we left the pub that night,
glass bead snowmelt on our foreheads,
promise where our lips connected,
softness where the hoop of your ice cold
piercing touched my nose and
fire leaped through
to a heap I neglected
for too long and
consumed you and me. I'm sorry.
You were an accident. I was too.
In pieces, that night, always forgetting.
Drowning until my gentle heart
floats to the surface of an ocean
I did not know I plied
until the night we touched noses.
