teacup collection

--
we dropped
with a burst
pronounced from the clouded grave
cement prisms sloped from your porch
hit the toothy sidewalk
into the gap
here
water could touch us

--
we fixed our scarves
around our heads
(proud of our waves
you and i both) but
we waddled
shrubs old women
laughed as sisters
though
i never told you i dreamed
i kissed a man with black hair smelling
thick of apples
and met you in the morning
deposited by the peculiar
universe

--
you tell me
under great palmate maples
over sidewalk tectonics
how afraid you were as a boy
i take you firm in my palms
your arms veined
i marvel at your devotion to suffering
i never eat
you titter but
this is you precise
a thin man now who lets feet soak (mine
safe in tall boots)
for the sake of what we call rain


--
denim sucks at the backs of our knees
we holler in dirty wet
overtake frowning facades on front street
(i wish to be a thing tiny and sexless
to love in ways
being a woman can't confuse)
perspiration
stuck about bricks
lulled now
we see your places
(a desert sky flanked with a thousand crested sparrows!
a graygreen riverbed tells moonwort daydreams!)

--
past lignin-flap screen
around coffee noise
we inhale to earwax intimacy
we descend together into teacups
sip steam
hot fogs
yellow letters
we remembered from faraway summers
now
i see unburied
black scratches you've grown a beard
ragged patches of pink skin
textbooks and telephones slide wanton from my palms
exhale
and shoulderbones
now
this only thing happened in the world