in the morning she watches him stretch–
a crescent moon of flesh,
hyphen of health,
a skin comma,
flat on the floor.
she searches his smooth form,
mesmerized
by the curves and softnesses,
eyes sliding as her fingertips wish to–
following his lines,
the continuity of verse;
words rolling like muscles under skin,
a long, undulating note.
she wishes suddenly
that he’d teach her how to smoke
a cigarette,
drink whiskey before breakfast–
no bananas, no oatmeal,
no low-fat milk–
teach her how that body can sustain
so many vices
and still glisten
with salt-skinned beauty.

The Widow-Maid comes
with wild black hair and
crimson eyes,
her footsteps soft reminders
that her shoes once danced.

“I have been mistress to a year of pain,”
she whispers sadly to fresh loaves of bread,
“out of a long winter, I awake.”

–the coins pass hand to hand,
and back outside her white breath curls–

“Oh, lover!
Please know
that if I pass you in the street, it is
the icy sting of wind,
and thus…
Thus, with tears, I greet you,
but I do not weep.”

–one frozen hand upon the door–

“Do not think I weep!”

Inside she shakes slivers of sky from her hair,
sheds every garment and stands naked,
ready for the turn of seasons,
asking yellowed walls–

“Were we ever really friends,”
(but idle paper doesn’t speak)
“or simply lovers,
waiting to be?”

In autumn it strikes me.
Cold fist in my gut,
a loneliness and wanderlust.
I must not weep.
I must not stand beneath freezing rains,
I must not sit in dark corners
or howl at the moon as I am wont.
Instead I must smile,
grow the fuck up,
and molt.

You are not a special snowflake.
You are only temporary.