The Darkness in Your Throat

for and with Nikki

The darkness is an animal that showed up at our door
and we weren’t ready for this, but we took it in

because there was something about our hands
as we touched it after it coiled between our ankles

that said this will be. It couldn’t but be, and so there’s
no point trying to parse out the wherefores and hows

and so, here we are with this smooth thing and its jagged
edges. That first night it bit us both, and I drew back

my hand (so near the edge of hurting whatever it is) then
knew it had never known what a soft touch was. And so,

I fed it. It didn’t like the tap water, so I let it drink
from the toilet. It didn’t like tuna, so I gave it flesh.

It sits with us on the couch as we pretend to watch TV
while we occasionally stroke it, and give it funny voices,

and its tail waves when we say its name, which is not
Darkness. I do not think this darkness will ever leave.

As I reach for your hand, it purrs, chirrups in its sleep,
and whatever it is, its sleek fur gleaming in the dim lamps

we’d chosen so long ago because we couldn’t much stand
to see what was being done, dimmer always set to just-

enough-to-see or off. When this thing (I will not tell its
name) is sleeping peacefully, sometimes, I am overwhelmed

with this sense I could kill it if I tried hard enough, but then
the other feeling comes, where I watch its small mouth

moving in dreams and I think what else could I possibly be?
I tell it goodbye in the morning, hoping I’ll arrive to an empty

house, but then, I think of it during the day, and it gentles
my rough voice moving over other folks’ worlds. It runs

to the door to greet me.

 

You Dare

With you, the streetlight is the moon. With you, no god-
damn thing is on time, or moves too slowly, quick-
ly. Don’t make it weird. No, that’s not what I think.
We should make it weird. Make it new. We are hot

in this weather. Who wouldn’t be? We are a long-
soon ways away from home. I don’t want
to be home with you. No. I want a shack, a lean-
to where bright clothes flap in wind, where song

is what we made it. Where it’s all recall,
or it’s never remembering ever. No.
With you, any light is the moon. In low-
-er tide, we could skim along the shore, small

in beacons weaving. The way you roll your sleeve.
The way your bright glance shifts. The way you leave.