i’ll tell you what we are -
two obstinate continents
colliding in the hallway,
both determined to force
our way past.

we grind along our fault lines,
raising mountains,
opening the earth,
not joined, not separate,
locked in a slow carving
that leaves our coastlines ravaged
and matching.

i don’t know when you moved in,
perhaps you lived here before me,
i assume it is you because some mornings
i smell your perfume in the elevator,
like i just missed riding with you.
when i reach the ground floor
i can’t help but hurry outside
though i know the street will be empty.

as i walk to work on those mornings
i can sense you standing in a room
that is somewhere behind me,
drinking your coffee,
which you won’t have time to finish
before you absentmindedly use it
to dip your paintbrushes.

can’t we declare one evening, this evening, a separate land
populated only by us and complete with its own laws that declare
while that temporary border the night persists we may seek
without restraint or loss of innocence the full and unshrouded
spring within each other without a care for the daylight world of
each person so tangled with everyone we can never perform an
unconnected action and it is only here in this secluded country
that we may momentarily disengage from all but one and focus our
attention like a lens (that concentrates diffuse light to an incendiary
point) on each moment and each sensation so the ache that travels
under our skin (so much that we feel we contain a roiling water)
might be eased and we might lie in the stillness that follows,
adjacent, untangled.