You ask what I’m not a liar about. It’s dark.
From bed, we watch some passing headlights rake
the windows back. I tell you how I see myself: alone
with my guitar, bright strappy heels, a bit of sweet pea
twisted through my hair. But my fingers slide right off
the strings I say & pull the covers up. They just
won’t move at all. By now, you’ve spun deep into the quilt.
Your arms are gone. I’m telling you the truth I say
about the guitar. I’m sitting up now. Almost, I can feel
the lacquered wood against my chest, a resonance
of thrumming spruce. You stir, then clock
the space between my hands. There’s nothing there
you sigh. Why make things up? So I look again.
Left arm, right arm: crescented. There’s something here
but not an instrument. It has some weight.
I notice how the quilt is tucked as if the cradled shape
could drift apart like antler velvet. I’ve never held
a form precise as that, a living gift in bundled cloth
nor felt its pulse go zing against my hand, & then—
my hands feel warm. More truly weighted than before.
I glimpse a momentary face. Tiny zero snugged against
my elbow’s dark. I wrap the quilt. I keep
it close. All night, I try to count the hushed electrons
blooming in my brain. It’s dark, it’s dark.
I sink into a dozing dream of water, rippled leaves—
the little face is sometimes there & sometimes not
& here, or there, I almost say I wish, then bite
my lip to force it back inside. I sit up like that
till morning comes to turn our bedroom white.
