The language of our sighs

SARAH NAKAMURA

and then there was the time i thought i was a saint.

when the slow-creeping tide pulls me under under and i forget that we made love on the front lawn, the grass and mosquitoes pricking beneath the thinness of our skin,

skinny-dipping in frigid water at midnight and that other time i burnt pita in the betty crocker toaster oven and you fanned the smoke out onto the balcony with a towel.

when i forget the snow falling like leonard cohen’s dust motes the night you took me skating in nathan phillips square, the tulip i’ve planted and the cigarettes we’ve smoked and how to parse the language of our sighs:

wear my name close against your skin. it is fragile as awakening, all baby bird bones and tea-candles, the first steps of a newborn colt, but i promise it will hold.

wear it close as skin and the heat of your body will keep it safe for my return.