When We Called It Making Love

Your tongue was too bitter for my senses

So I attached my lips to the hollows of your hipbones instead

And counted the number of breaths you took in the

spaces you once filled with "I love you"'s,

Clinging to the curve of your ribcage and imagining I was a 

blood cell in your starving arteries,

Working my way up into your heart only to be beat right out.

I'd orbit your skeleton like the Earth does the Sun,

even when your eyes are more closed off than the 

dark side of the moon.

I'd curl my fingers around your wrist as if

the hair couldn't fall from your scalp and

your skin would always be darker than mine,

as if your smile wouldn't falter in the faces of strangers with syringes

and walls whiter than your teeth.

My grandfather forgot my name in the later years of his life,

or maybe he never remembered.

All I know is that in his last breath he found peace,

and I hope that someday your name won't choke me

like a roll of old pennies lodged in my windpipe.

I'll burn a hole straight through the copper with the remaints of

the medicine you refused to take just so I can find a way to

breathe again.