For J.

For J.

My chest is a dozen drunk lights.

I mean, my chest is a carnival.

I mean, my chest is a wrinkled mouth yelling,

come one, come all! grey-gummed and laughing

to anyone who might listen or look

away. There are things more important than my heart

and it’s dumb butterflies or bunnies or whatever

is fucking around in my ribs’ underground.

It’s ridiculous to love anyone

as much as I love him (I love him!)

the world all heel-ached and leaking,

hard bark, bite, all of it. And yet.

We are the luckiest just sitting in bed

together—the long-houred morning kind, the light

just barely threading itself in through the blinds.

I wanna tell him: “You

are the love of my life,” because we are young and coming

undone at the sight of each other’s thigh. I let

the dark hairs that curl there like tiny questions or cursive

letters or a whole leg full of sleeping animals

distract me from a country war-soaked and hardly

noticed. And I will let it

again and again, in part because of my own minute hand’s

steady rant and this tick now holds his big toe

known against my ankle bone, and

also his elbow crease, his hiccup, his sweet

foldable fists, bruises, upper lip. I wanna say, “Oh

you” because I mean it and I don’t know

what else to do with a chest this brightly

wound and held, so Oh you, oh you, oh you.