pale green winter

we leant upon time, tucking into its dips and rising with its swells.

we could not get our shoes on.

my hands learned your light-switches, and the notches of your spine.

my feet learned: south past the train tracks, turn right at the marquee,

follow the pale ridge of evening over into night.

into your moss-eaten neighborhood, quiet as my childhood.

your house was the same house into which my father escaped my mother.

your hair was my father’s hair, which was my hair, which was the hair of

our bedouin great-grandmothers, slouching out of bethlehem.

we cooked and ate, cooked and ate. we slept, and rose for work.

sloping sideways, mild and quick, you balanced a child on your hip.

you sang under your breath, and peeled oranges.

i joked around my devotion to you, or spoke plainly into your collarbone.

you were milk froth, steaming pots and pans and clattering wooden spoons

and drawers that never fully shut and the clop of the wind-blown door.

i was hungry all the time, so you fed and fed me.

by that, of course, i mean that you fucked and fucked me.

your blue hands, your bent fingers.

i could have snapped you in half. i could have canonized you.

winter bloomed and wilted, swathing us in soft cotton, the gaslit whir of the

heater, bed sheets dirtied and washed and dirtied again.

good luck fell out of your mouth and into mine.

we walked into the wind, our faces wet, our hair wet, our hearts gushing

and large. we rejoiced at every change in the weather.

we rejoiced at the breakfast table.

i was grateful to wash dishes in your lukewarm sink while you dressed,

rushed and haphazard, three-handed, four-handed, grinning.

your mouth was grateful upon the soles of my feet.

i wanted to grow up into you just as badly as i wanted bruises shaped like

your fingertips.