At your house,
I can’t sleep past four.
An outdoor luminaire spotlights your popcorn-textured ceiling
and transforms the dust flecks suspended in air into fireflies.
Your arms lock
my shoulders, a pine
twisted in wisteria. Is this an approximation
of love—your open mouth pushing sour breath into my damp face?
I wonder
where I threw my keys,
if it’s worth my time to brush my teeth or find my underwear
before I sneak out, if I should stay for daybreak and breakfast.
I will leave,
I know, before Sun
breaches the horizon, hard worker that she is, no matter
how much I argue with myself about the right way to go.
Loneliness
feels nearest after
an experiment in closeness. Forget all light—natural
and manmade. We each get what we deserve: language barriers,
small bruises,
to become the homes
we have mistreated. We deserve to wake too early, alone,
to speed down the highway, to watch the sunrise through kudzu blooms.