There were no goodbyes scrawled
on the bed frame,
no apologies painted on the floor
with tea and chalk.
Those words didn't
exist in your vocabulary, lover,
because you weren't
supposed to feel anything.

But then I came along with
my searching blue eyes and
demanding lips and you couldn't
just get rid of me like all the rest, no..

The seductive rain hit the windows
with an angry hand and made
the sky shrivel up like vanilla skin
and we stripped off our clothes
under a cluster of police lights;
strawberry red and turquoise fear.
You kissed my mouth like a Sadie

Tell me, what do you think about when
the debutante moon has lost her charm
and there's nothing on TV to keep you up past 11 o'clock?
Do your eyes glaze over, remembering
how I used to hold your head on my knee and rake my
fingers through your yellow hair, baby?
Does your chest burn like a joint in the night with
the absurd memory of my mouth pressed to your
shadowy abdomen under turquoise plastic stars?
David, it was heaven, making you come undone!
You were dirty and beautiful; a clean-cut
little show choir first date gone wrong.

And I know I said you weren't my type

Reputation is a cruel, deceiving thing
with dark humor in its smile.
Your shirt sleeve rolls up and people
start chattering about your
tattoo but all I can focus on
is the sinewy peach stretch of skin on your bicep.
It excites me like a cold shower at blistering noon
or walking across a bridge during rush hour traffic.
Anyway, what is wrong with the fact
that you believe love should hang
from a Tim Burton type of tree?

Attraction comes at us
like a freight train in eastern Iowa;
merciless and unstoppable in its
race against time and judgment,
not letting us breathe