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You come to me as I once came to Roald Dahl-
wide-eyes, open mouth, chin relaxed,
your fingers grubby with used car money,
sandwiches and ink, the way you left a shadow
of yourself on each page of improbable grey.
-----------------You
cup me and think: mine.
Words dribble from my mouth, little raspberries
of sound ricochet off my spine for the swallow.
And you found me by the bed, bent, face down,
and you ran your fingers through and through me,
tickling the truth out (though it was fantastic
and you never truly believed).
And so you stepped gingerly over the long
worm bodies on the wet sidewalk,
tried to levitate your cereal bowl
and broke your collarbone instead.
I think you saw something of yourself in me.
Was it a dirty child lost in the wilderness of
language?
The way I infested a peach with my skeletal lust?
Strange little mouse, so put upon and deserving?
The way I flared up like a woman full of holes,
so visceral and ugly and bare?
The day I woke up cold and without covers
and you tugged on my big ears
and said you loved me-that was the reason
you kept turning and returning
the page.
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