i wake up from a dream of my mouth
open over your soft breast.

it is 3 am and i have lost you
in the tangled sheets of my bed.

i search for you. i search for you until
i really wake up, naked on the landing,
looking down the stairs.

i remember i didn’t lose you in my bed,
i lost you in the park on the corner,
seated on a bench at its edge.

the only square cloud i have seen
is your suspended bed
drifting within stepladder range.

you dragged me aboard
and we spent the afternoon
playing two naked angels
taking a tumble,
heading for a fall.

we spent the evening
sharing the same rosey breath,
knitting our eyelashes and
weaving our hair until we slept.

we climbed down in the morning
much later than our waking,
ex-angels joining the world.
tender feet on solid ground,
we tethered your cloud
for keeping for the afternoons.

i am on the carpet and you are on the bed,
and the wine is leaking from the bottle
and both our mouths are drunken
and you believe in love and only love
but the wine it makes you thirsty
and you believe in love and only love
but the evenings leave you winded
and if our doubts had their way
we might both be elsewhere,
but doors and locks and stair flights
conspire to do our thinking
and when we look away we miss
the wine bottle winking to the deadbolt
and the deadbolt nodding to the pillows
and the pillows blowing out the candles.