Tongue

She had thoughts in which everyone was implicated--you in particular. "In particular" not only as singled out, but also as having great detail. And you do have great detail. She cursed and swore oaths to barbaric gods when she drank, but tonight she is sober.

She will not see you today or tomorrow, perhaps on the third day of the following full moon but not at this hour. So you do not see her hair curl on the edges. You do not know how the darkness below her eyes has grown from fatigue. She sees you with her eyes closed, recounts those great details from memory--that you never stumbled on your words as she does, that your eyes are a set distance from your lips but still communicate meaning. Meaning to her, meaning she can interpret, softly. You are not everything to her. You are something. This thing is a specific thing. This thing is a space that you have negotiated for yourselves. It is a thing that I do not understand. I know her, but I do not know her as you know her. For all the life between us, I have never heard her be spiteful, even in her blasphemy.

She tells me about the great details of you: the texture of your hair, the way your teeth come together, the shape of your fingernails.... I write them down as she dictates. She is dominating that way. She demands that I recall -- exactly imitating her intonation -- the words she has spoken. Words about you. Your silence during this is an absence she fills with her own body. Her body which I know. A body I can claim as my nation. You may travel her land and learn to speak her language, even come to worship her gods; but they were always mine. Touch her, taste her, listen to her words while thinking of her tongue as it moves in articulation. She will do this when she is with you.

Shower

You whispered her name into the water
As you tried to cleanse your body
Of the delicateness of another woman.

I heard you.
I was not there, but I heard you.
You love her.
I know that you love her, but you never told her.

You close your eyes while the water pours over your face
So that even God won't see your tears.
You taste the saltiness on your lips
Before it is washed away,
Before they join the sea.

We are all crying with you
Crying for her.
Our tears form a sea where I swim.
Through those drops of yours
That cling to my body,
I hear you whisper her name.

Empty

When you kissed me I could not help but think of her. You did not tell me about her, but I felt her presence in your words. In the evening you might have touched me, but she came between us. I could not tell if she demanded that space or if I gave it to her. Perhaps you reserved it solely for her. I do not know. You did not say. I made you dinner, and you made me lonely. In the setting of the sun, I saw our reflection in the window. There was only one soul between us. We shared words without intimacy as she ricocheted between our lips and left our bodies empty.

Laughter

Her lips compressed tightly into a rigid grin. You felt her tension, but you did not kiss her, did not ask her to explain. You could only smile glumly in return. Her eyes squinted through the brown room and reminded you of child sunrays, but today she was not happy. And the sadness drifted between the both of you in silence. She sniffed quietly, annoying you as familiar habits do. You wanted an apparition to appear. You wanted to hear cacophonous laughter to distract the two of you in your mutual melancholy.

Anger

She slapped you hard, and her mouth pursed into a pout. It was all she could do. It was all she had to say. This painful recrimination echoed its panic through the empty hallway. It could not offer sympathy. And the floor swallowed your feet, and the light glowed from behind her head as she stepped from the pedestal on which she had to stand to face you. As she tumbled, her black tresses unwove themselves in whispers. Tiny dewdrops formed on your brow as you tried to telepathy her all your love and admiration, but she could not hear you. She did not know the language that you spoke and confused your words with lies. While time raced on in a drugged frenzy, I sat dutifully by and wrote this poem for you.

Spoon

She licked the spoon full of a languor she never showed toward your body. Her lips worked their cautious way up the chocolate mound while you imagined your flesh beneath such a succulent kiss. She opened her eyes in a flutter of joy, and in their depths you saw her all self-aware. She did this to hurt you. Without a breath, her lips told you how she knew your lies. You had not spoken the truth, but it was written on your body, on your disheveled clothes. She hoped that you might see, tangled in her hair, the silence of her accusation.