Skirt&Breeze

this skirt you put on the night before of the softest fabric.
chocolate brown, white hot circles all over.

this breeze we have created by entrusting ourselves
to the center of something of great mass and velocity
and then rolling the windows down.

this skirt you took off to swim.
the swimming that was a nourishment, a thing I needed,
the recognition of happiness as unknotting muscle
and the release and intake of breath

this breeze that blows your skirt against my skin.

this skirt you didn’t put on after we pulled ourselves from the water.
the one you put back on this morning before we left it out

on the shore with the rest of our belongings.

this breeze you press your face into as you lean partly
out the window while appearing fully beautiful in that swimsuit of yours.

this skirt you put back on this morning because it came off last
night when you dug your nails into my palms like trying to tell me
that I wouldn’t stay dead for too much longer. could you have
anticipated the breeze or the waiting water? did you read
from the lines around my eyes of those four months when
I was hysterical over death or the possibility that maybe
I wasn’t anymore? oh, no, you couldn’t have known but it
hardly mattered. not with this skirt on the floor, with these
bodies in the dark. these bodies slight of mass, their most
admirable velocities found in the blood racing within.
these bodies and the soft breezes their breathing creates.
not with these nails. not with your nails in my palms like
telling me you couldn’t tell me, like telling me you
didn’t know but here you were. here. here with spades
and pressure. with this skirt on the floor and, of course,
it all explodes outward until suddenly it doesn’t because
tonight we don’t want everything. sit up and compare
hands with me. press your nails into my palms like saying
it doesn’t matter what we do with our bodies as long as
we still have bodies. tell me you never thought I was
dying. press your nails into my palms but don’t kiss me
because we all know that story and that’s not what’s coming.

this is the breeze of you sleeping

this is my body in a bed like an unoccupied skirt
on the floor.

this is the mass and velocity of our bodies
and no, it isn’t much, but this is the mass
and velocity of this thing that carries us.
the windows are down. we are creating a breeze and look:
for once I am not thinking of anything and you aren’t either.