We sat on the second step at the foot
of her door, our feet on the street, our knees
held to our chest with our left arm, hand-rolled
cigarettes in our right, and lifting our chins to the sky,
releasing smoke between cold words, she spoke:
I wish I’d always known,
before my last and ‘fore my first.
that every person’s tongue
has a unique tongue-print,
a trace like fingertips.
When our mouths met,
his tongue left a mark
which undetectable to naked eye
delectable to my senses
defenseless when all of a sudden,
a tuesday afternoon, a month or two
have passed I drive alone
eyes on the road, I taste that mark
though not because I think of him
my body simply chooses
to conjure up that tang of flesh
but just like him it comes and goes
and leaves a sweet regret,
a trace of past selves, now as distant
as the first brush of his palm
pressed against my right cheekbone
and past the helix of my ear,
plaguing waking thoughts with all
the doubts of words so knowingly unspoken,
desire so foreign from pure future purpose,
he said he never loved but once
before and doubtful whether
he shall ever love again…
Again the tang persists
but how can silence
conceive such a memory?
She claimed she never loved,
but as I tilted her head toward mine
and kissed her warm, tan temple,
we let those words drift and fade
between our smokey exhales.
