The Common Appliances

My fondest memories of this year are inextricably linked to you
and the scent of your mother's lemon cake.
The bright lights of Providence led us to Tunde.
Our cheeks burned bright, tingling in the October evening chill, and we were seared in the fire of something new.
Our stomachs churned, empty;
Our ears waited to be filled with the sounds and sonnets we deemed holy.
You and I, staying true to the downtown grid,
Walking.

The grey-green leather of your old jacket
Whispered secrets to my spine,
Vertebra by vertebra,
Skeletal gossip.

Next year at this time, our fabric will squirm into strangers' lives, chafing and ripping, until your clothes run out of stories to tell.
Our impossible love - you curse the term - like Howard and Dominique,
Struggling for a conclusion.

You are Medusa,
Hair of snakes and fables; body of wood and metal.

Is your sense of serendipity still intact?
Submit yourself to this lysergic bliss, the sweaty anonymity.

We need nothing but the warm melodies that
Pour into our ears, over our bodies,
Like syrup.

Never fastened to the other
Like Velcro tabs and their incessant process
Of mutual breakdown-
Rather, two pieces of warm toast glued by honey,
Detachable,
Complements.

Even in these crowded quarters, we find one moment-
Your prickly chin, my cherry-red cheeks-
One last free moment under the will of the electronic.