the things i was never supposed to say:

suitcase tipped open like a mouth in protest.
                that's where the (empty) cans went,
                with each toss a new vision,
                all those songs you played past two in the morning,
                all that faith you put in some god-picture in your head.

your spine was crooked and so you leaned to the left when you stood,
              one hand (the right one) always outstretched and
              facing towards soil, and beyond that roots and hell,
              the hint of woodsmoke curling up from
              the patterns your fingers drew in the air, the wake they left.

private slips of time during night, you dove headfirst
              into the (abandoned) slaughterhouse swimming hole,
              your body glowing bare like a firefly winked out by
              swirling pitch water. you raised your hands up,
              rolled your eyes to heaven, shouted something like a prayer.

it was those august nights, sweat still prickling our necks
            even in the darkest, quietest (most intimate) moments,
            sky like smoothed fabric, your secondhand greeting
            alternating gray, brown oil paint smears against the valleys of our hips,
            the upward curve of our lips in shadow, and beyond that your hungry eyes.