like leaves

They sat facing each other on the train's vinyl seat as it carried them all the way out to the sea. Squinting, she dressed his pale lips in bold hues, creating a bow with her brush where there wasn't before.

Frozen in her hands, he held his breath while she worked. She'd never paint him unrecognizable, though she often did herself.

And she pulled back and smiled, dizzied by the blur of trees through the window behind him. Then like leaves kissing glass, she brushed her lips against his, undoing it all before the ocean ever could.


photo: LOV-E

pineapple

Today I walked down your old street, keeping time with the rising sun. I remembered a similar morning two summers ago, when I tiptoed out your front door and bought a pineapple while you slept. "Pineapple!" you exclaimed when you awoke and saw it sitting there, crosshatched and expectant. But our paranoid stomachs prevented us from ever tasting it.

I saw you dance on that street like no one was watching. I saw you cry on that street like no one was watching, too.

I hope you're only dancing, these days.

Photo: Tethered to

the answer's always yes

They called you babydoll for your first five years, until an agent at a passport office near Fresno forced your mother to name you something "real". She said that name aloud just once, and even now, only border guards at foreign checkpoints remember it as yours.

I think of that as I watch you slowly dropping clothing, like a trail of aliases, onto my bedroom floor. You're shedding little piles of sequins and mythology and I'm glowing inside, because I know that when I ask "should we...?" your answer will always be "yes".

Photo: Beatrice Neumann

obstruction

I've been running into your imaginary obstacles for so long,

my limbs are permanently bruised.

(Photo: Lucy Howard-Taylor)

milk teeth

“Kiss me with your teeth,” I insisted.

“It will hurt,” you whispered back.

“It won’t,” I assured you, extending the nape of my neck like a compromised mink,

coyly anticipating slaughter. “I’ll like it.”

With reluctance you obliged, tilting your head and grazing me on the horizontal.

With each pass you seized more flesh, enthusiasm intensifying.

And my breath convinced you I was right on both counts.

Only now do I realize you were referring to your pain.

diversion

She tried looking at something beautiful to keep herself from crying.

But it only made her cry harder.

Photo: Harpy