In the not-quite-dream, I cooked
for you, wearing nothing
but an apron – light
-thirsty, in the window’s thievery
of autumn, you held me & there was no need
for sound there – in that life,
you choked me & both of us
wanted it. In that life,
I learned to call adoration the distance
between crush & heart
-eyes, just as I learned to define kink
as the distance between two secrets; & you –
neither adam’s
apple, nor stilleto’s heel, but the choke between
two knotted forms of surrender –
tell me about the drowning
city of you, of flood & lung
puncture; how we familiared
the familiar until we became
unrecognizable – my face
contorted into every every
–thing & no face at all; two
roads neither con- nor die-
verging, but parallel – I could make
a sad & failed canon from all that was
unspoken between us: slip
of. Automata of. Petals pressed
into. Follicle of. Crushed
pipe of. Gorge and. I could go
all night if you let me – the road’s long
babe, might as well buckle up & call it eternity
’s unresting door – I fever-dreamt
you, timeless – I made you – I
made you up – in this way,
you were a window –