let us run into the night laughing, let us die with a young heart.
*
*
The olive branches are staring
back when I snap them in half.
Dig into the dirt, I kick my heels
and you say ‘come here, you
monkey.’ Your hands are cold
and there is a burn rippling
in me which could warm
both of us. We are standing in a
parking lot, there are no car
in this ungodly hour and we let the sun
climb over our shoulders, greeting
sad eyes, sad mouths, staggering
hands folded over each other
like paper planes. We are sitting
in a parking lot, both twenty-one.
You take off your shoes, dangling them
by the thin straps, saying ‘I don’t blister
when drunk dancing’, and I’m thinking
‘then how are we going to remember it
the night after, and the night after, and
the night after?’ and I’m thinking
‘memories: we’re pressing pain
against our ears and listen to its
beats’, and I’m thinking ‘love,
let’s walk home, and brew coffee,
and have a shower, and climb
in bed together; and make slow
patient love, listening to our bodies
in that deliberate music, stripped
from all the loud noises of the night
before, outside our windows’.
We pick at the wild blooms
on the sidewalk. Porous asphalt
and concrete cracking, opening up
little doors to life. I give you a flower
no one would buy, so in a sense it is
priceless; your hair loose, your lipstick
smeared, your short skirt scrunched up
and your nose too when you smile
the nectar in my veins is bursting
back into flowers. Always
so violently, youth kisses
like it could kill us.
*
Sat 28/10/2023.
Ant.
Sesame Tofu 