Surface Tension  

Scarified now but how? When we once heard
parades from windows, swayed in artificially
luminescent reeds under the Brooklyn Bridge,
filled soaked corn husks with masa dough,
 
glimpsed mouse-deer scamper on wish-thin
legs, called each other mon petit coeur de sucre,
split each other like oranges at the navel,
turning pith to strings between wet fingers.
 
Our realm was the back of doors, ill-lit alleys,
laying splayed out on a lake dock baked in sun
until the impulse to jump. We were gods
caught in a rising soap bubble, arms bare,
 
upswept scent of sand dune barren as moon
except for us twinned, intertwined, tied
to nothing but in the moment each other.
Where did you go? Suds, not love, evaporate.

Copyright © 2008 Ravi Shankar. All rights reserved.

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