i clocked the watch once and wished its red hand swept across your face i knew i’d want the date

i saw the toy’s hallmark that predates its maker cupid’s bow pointillism it looked best in color

i slipped on a staircase tripped on slippery oak fell into a concrete pool cut and bruised joints

you caught me there held me — rubbed salt into my fresh wounds to heal and to hurt me

a thin black strap is all that holds back the sun when this camera falls it’ll leak light forever

three solid bands form an unbroken bracelet brass never gleamed until becoming a label

holding mine down against white silk, gray wool, graffiti it’s easy to go deep

we spin on turntables gift-wrapped bubbles plotting high treason

one query hangs on a hook near my thigh “how do you want to feel?”

you produce three words two supple, one sharp relaxed. caregiven. surrender.

we better not have another handle’s cold to the touch i hold your hand for warmth

fetching a towel and water unfamiliar closet and faucet you aren’t used to this, are you?

inside these walls, a forest i lead you down the worn path to a fire blazing at the center

it’s just us dancing there — adjust angles, rhyme rhythms dig holes with feet and fingers

you haven’t visited in years moonlight in an empty room i’ve never been, but will again

draw maps into memory twist silver, pink, and blue the way back is circular

the only way to ignore the sunrise is to close our eyes at daybreak

white light pours through delicate curtain lace— an unseen ocean roiling

more to see and to say as blue waves beckon, calling toward tomorrow

but no matter what we try, there’s no true darkness. light seeps in everywhere

the shade we find there feels almost ultraviolet; we see it together, apart

in separate beds, rooms on opposed coasts, we conjure the same cosmos

this color could be our own. when other lovers see it too, do they know we bathe in it?