You may remember
sleeping in your clothes
on my bed with me next to you
and waking like a shot had gone off
noticing through hair in your eyes
the sun was catching up to
the western horizon and out to sea
low bands of light created
elastic gravity away from me

For uncounted hours we had lay
with me nude from toes to hip
clutching you to my chest
revealing your soft belly
at frayed ends of a dirty T-shirt
we slept unceremoniously
in weary intervals
disconnected by weak reality
and halfhearted attempts to wake you

Out my unlocked door and
across the city your own bed
lay half empty and a woman
maybe ventured a hand into nothingness
and maybe in dreams your own hand
ventured to meet hers there
or maybe your mind’s eye saw and felt
my own hand snaking under clothing
memorizing you one inch at a time

As my hand skirted up and across
private skin towards a bulls eye tattoo
my own eyes had tears to cry
and moments spun out
in ever quickening seconds
that hurried night off into corners
and down into sidewalk cracks
and once again I had to measure
your love in minutes and miles

There was one second more
to feel your body taking up space
inside my sheets and home
I spent a quarter second more
adoring you completely and painfully
tracing my eyes over the place
where I had made purple
on your lips when kissing
had become fighting

You gasped as you woke
and erased me from all space
your words shapeless and suspended
both seized and eluded me
like sulfur on an extinguished match
I kissed my fingertips and blew
as all feeling broke apart in the air
and settled like dust amongst floorboards
into gaps I can’t travel