Love should not

Be written in stone

But written in

Water.

—Catullus

‍

‍

Beneath a NO SMOKING sign, sat I, smoking a joint, 

when you stepped out the bar, patting your pockets 

as if you hadn't been touched in years. I offered 

you a light & my coat as a shield against the wind. 

Your hair smelled of lavender & menthol. Shame. 

You took a drag, the deepest I'd ever seen, 

& grinned—a red sickle glistening in the night. Your eyes 

dismembered me: I could feel a part of myself drifting 

along your current, drowning in its riverbed; the other 

parts reconvened to form a chorus of irreverent Marias 

as you opened your mouth & a drunk driver 

tried parallel parking but failed—setting off a refrain 

of car alarms, all of which beeped in sync, 

as if acquiescing to some unknown pulse. The silence 

swaggered on &, no, I don't think I heard a word you said 

after 'Got any more of that?' because English is less 

expressive than body language, the petroglyphs of skeletons. 

The funny part is that I'm serious. Perhaps it was 

the alcohol or weed inside our bodies, a song 

that needed to be written down, or the grind 

we shared by the jukebox, a mere audition 

for the real thing, but if not then I can say in earnest 

it was more than pheromones & a roseate dawn, 

more than in flagrante delicto, two bodies, sun & moon, 

swapping places, painting a picture so ugly it could be 

mistaken for an avant-garde masterpiece. Call it 'love'—

until the silence churned secrets, the ordinary not enough, 

envy wedging between us like a remote in the sofa. 

You became a cat-lady's flashback stilled in the present 

& I just wanted to be cast in another movie, 

something less dramatic—a rom-com if the gods 

were so inclined—though, as you loved to say, 'Beggars 

can't be choosers, only chasers of sympathy's backwash.' 

My inner bum, I guess, was drunk on your fire water.

Unholy ghost. Speaking of which, I heard

that yours still haunts the same downtown dive

except now it reeks of sulfur & regret. I hope 

you find some peace. When I smoke I pray 

we meet between the afterlife & beforedeath,

until spotting a lipstick-stained butt on the sidewalk

carried by the wind, which has a mind of its own,

&, faced with no other choice, I let go. Please

understand that I’d give anything, like Narcissus,

to stare a ripple into those sky blue eyes again. 

‍