Sun Slats

I love you most very early in the morning
when your face is as relaxed as the way a pipe hit
used to make me feel,
melted and heavy and clear
like a lucid dream
like i am so numb i feel everything
I stare, marveling at how your cheeks are drawn
and cold as my grandfather's corpse
when i found the nerve to press my
lips to the half-dried clay mask that death molded him into....
(After, I absently licked them and tasted makeup
but was not revolted, only surprised - my gut chiming like when you hit your elbow)
but you - sleepy and alive
are regrettably malleable under the pecked pressure
of my needy kisses
you turn away
and you arch your back and make a z of your body
I'd rather compare it to a question mark
because it makes this easier to write, more symbolic and
metaphorical.
only, you aren't a question mark in the morning.
which is why i love you most then

soon though, the gauzy sheath of dawn and its balmyness is jostled ajar by the dull
hottness of my mouth
sun warmed stones,
and quietly - like elitist theater goers who
suddenly realize the philistinian nature of a show
and are embarrassed at their indiscretion, guiltily, when the lights dim
brush past knees whispering
"'scuse me, I'm sorry, sorry, 'scuse me"
and then slip out the back exit - relieved,
your brows seem to burrow almost by reflex
and a mountable wall affixes itself to your shoulders
a sandwich board with too many big words and compound sentences
making it impossible to read past the first line,
and it stops being easy to pin you down, the corpse of a monarch
so i roll back towards the wall and blink my eyes until the pictures
become blurry impressionist paintings that i don't understand
and sleep comes again, a white horse.