Before

We used to sleep skin to skin like one indivisible self.
Between our fingers the electricity glowed blue at night.
There was nothing on your face I did not know by sight.
Take from me this hunger, lay what remains upon your shelf.

We used to lie in sheets so soft we would dissolve.
Your laughter was the jingle of cracked seashells in a jar.
The sound echoed out like radio tuned to some far
City. Now the static hangs sinister, like some gray maw

Singing our torn bodies to sleep. I can’t sleep.
Not anymore. Not since your mouth came to an O
Saying only this: No, no, no, no, no. No
more will memory be the uneasy house we keep

Upright together. What is past is past. And fast.
Tomorrow I will stretch my limbs out wide
And shake my head and dip my face into the tide
And pretend that what has passed is not, is never, past.