Libations

Amidst the gray,

frothing swirls of soap,

A month’s worth of love-residue

Lifts

from the purple duvet.

The fabric darkens

to a near black and each spilt

drink turns bright and ichorous

Again

for just a moment.

Drops of dark winter

beer fall like meteoroids among

the printed yellow stars of my blue

space-themed

sheets, streams of sparkling

white wine like comet tails lose

themselves twisting and curving

Beneath

our animal limbs.

We never drank much

outside the bed,

Did we?

If I’m being honest, I never

drank much at all

without you.

There was the mouthful of

scalding raspberry tea which escaped

the too-full mug in my hands, and soaked

through

your jeans, into the mattress beneath.

You took in a deep breath of

pain and I fussed over you, guilty

until you said a kiss might just fix you.

Soon

the tea and wet kisses mixed

like a pink virgin cocktail with our

pleasure’s evidence weeping down my legs.

That night,

love spiraled off our bodies in a raspberry steam.

You’d expect the bed to

smell of stale, musty libations,

Old lust yearning to live forever. But

tenderness

Invariably, was the only one I could pick out.

Near the end, the scent of

rain from the open window whirled

Through our dirty hair, encouraging the oils

to settle

upon the pillows.

The too hot nights

Forced sweat to bead across

your chest and my back, to the

point

where each time I was alone,

laying on that line of musk, my

face buried in the torn pillowcase, it

still felt

as if we were together.

But now alone indefinitely,

The bed is simply

soiled.

I think of how our lime-damp fingers

softly burned against each

other’s skin

as the too-strong gin and tonics

drooled from our

Lips.

I want to stare

through the glass until

the load finishes, but instead

I cringe

away from the

gray suds of devotion.

Rolling and thrashing in the

washing machine, they

swirl into the tap,

unseen.