1.
heart
meds
and light
dilate the pupils
when I open the door
my iris muscles retract to their outsides like
arms through water, as I drink in the welling and shape of you
electrical blood remembers to swim through the valves
we fumble for each other's
hands as if
our eyes
couldn't
see
2.
we
gulp
white tea
from porcelain cups
and my throat closes on
a thirty-year memory of your apprehensive smile,
you, picking at your sandwich, looking lost on the college lawn as this
tealeaf adrift on the milk of our infusion,
me, willing a way to
wash up on
your rim
and
stick
3.
your
fingers
paper rough
enmeshed in mine
your stomach's a milky shore
I trace the fine lines under your breasts
you've gone soft as paper soaked in yesterday's news of deluge and drowning
I can't tell by the sweat and swell
which part is you, or
me, making this
odd shape
of
us
