with the dawn of clocks emptied of hours
in archaic pauses
as if borrowed from another time,
Today, the sun’s vigil lasts a single day.
Noon-night knocks at my door,
and nearby, sunrise happens;
dark trails laid bare,
luring the rags I wear,
with your heart’s throbbing fervor
blooming between your thighs:
you push me, then you float above me;
and the moon slips into your hips.
You come after me, I come after you,
then you seduce me with the falling
of your mountains,
quakes and candles,
and flickers with bites of warmth.
I begin to pour, and I make you hurry,
but you slow me down, and we repeat the poetry.
The world goes on, there,
in darkness, where you pull me through,
you gesture toward a park,
you hint at its bushes,
and there too.
—Where are we?—you ask.
—Hmmmmm…
Dead streetlamps,
flowers that don’t understand.
Ice-cream desserts
melting down their meaning,
their heat, our heat,
where we burn up.
You light my cigarette,
steal it from my mouth,
and smoke it yourself.
You crawl; you spill,
you spread, you widen.
Then you insist I go for
those stalactites—mine—you say
melting like an ice-cream cone:
a grotto in a vertical plunge,
and I jump to avoid the downwards
that are really upwards,
of riverways and trails
still unexplored.
Your center over my mouth,
your thighs levitating my cheeks,
your breasts over my belly;
and we spin without spinning.
I scent the wildfire of your skin.
You dance over my darkness,
and I over the dark in you.
Drops on stalactites, or flowers,
of sky-blue rain, or white,
or black, what do we know
of colors, today, without light.
You move, and you move the queen.
—Check, for what?
—We were playing chess—you tell me.
I suppose so.
I move, and I move the king,
unmaking you, undoing you.
And we begin from scratch.
I serve you iced coffee
over rose-tinted grounds, roasted,
from silky shoulders I drink from.
And I get even. You boast.
Revenge. And you return.
—Do you smoke? —you repeat, again
—What are these cactus thorns doing on my lips?
—Lips? Which ones?
—Whichever you prefer.
And the light finds its way back
illuminating the whole disaster
that tomorrow will need cleaning.
—Ah, do you have any salt?
—I do.
—And I’m sorry, but I don’t have a typewriter, we don’t live in the nineteenth century.