Many nights I lay awake in bed, next to
my sister, remembering your gun powder

moans, how my brain exploded like a bank
vault as you dashed off with all my precious

thoughts. Often I imagine you outside
the window, making bird squawks

in the dark. But rushing out, I find only
the neighbor’s cat, stinking of the perfume

you wore that night we kissed with hoods
over our faces, as our bodies twirled

like coladas in a blender. I don’t know
your favorite color, but I could write

the definitive history of your tongue.
Neither of us limped away a hero

from that latex battlefield. The memorial
to our passion is a granite mattress

with the names of all the people we cheated
and lied to chiseled in. No rescue boat

can save the touches I left bobbing in the wild
ocean of your flesh, but if they cut open your heart,

like the belly of a shark, dumped its contents
on a table—would there be any trace of me?