V

My heart beats so rapid I'm afraid you'll wake up as it travels the mattress like radio waves. The steady pumps send vibration to the metal coils beneath us, heating up the electric spirals. Your limbs are small like mine and for a moment I question if we are really two different people. For a moment, many moments, we were the same. We felt the same, thought the same, our bodies so close we looked the same. My motions trigger your motions, and our motions move mountains. Your chest heaves like it has no skin, only air and bones, and we nap in gaps; awake for eight hours, sleep for four.

Through the open windows and from the streets below we can hear, "Intimacy is jazz." The people of the city join together like we do and I want to whisper out to them that we are waiting. Twirled limbs like pipe cleaners we contract and expand with each short breath.

When I was asleep in my bed I didn't know you were right behind me counting my freckles. Or my tattoos. I didn't mean to dance like that in front of you, but your Leo stars pulled me out on the dance floor. Our moons collided that night.

We'd look up to the sky and our noses would rust. We'd look so long we'd make the sky without earth. We'd absorb and absorb, absorb it all. We suck it all out of the sky in swirls like the familiar mattress coils.

VI

What I love about you is your wet hands and bad dreams. And how you drag your fingers on my skin. And how your complextion is perfect for writing poetry on your shoulder. How you pull your hats down low and ask politely if I will sew your shirt. It's when you say, "You know?" and I don't.

Cold and wet fingers that smelt like the softest strawberries. Our lips had a deep red color between the small splits and cracks. From the wine we drank in coffee mugs? Or the scabs from kissing hard like we breathed each other's carbon dioxide?

Where are you going and can I walk with you? was the first thing you said to me and the only thing I needed to hear.

It's nice to get compliments from strangers.