Strangers

Strangers

He watches me from underneath the apple blossom tree,

stands in his suit and tie, plum velvet and starched shirt,

like a Japanese foreigner against the hyper-blue of the sky,

the ragged green grass over-sharpened and aggressive,

and he looks defeated under those windswept branches,

bent boughs dusting his forehead in a petal and leaf crown

of apricot and pink and dusk-rose

I watch him from underneath the long-fingered uncut-nail clouds,

stand up against the window in my mother’s foam cashmere,

bare wood bruising the bones of my feet

as the brush of denim makes me feverish and my skin itch;

I use him and the window, framing my life in spare inches and eyes

as the walls slump inwards like yellow rice pudding

and I begin the act of eating distance

I let down my hair for him

that we could kiss, and trace buttons out of fabric loops

to release my hips to the damp shape of moist air,

which is not enough to keep my hands from hemlines and sleeves,

and I lean on the sill and we make love, he and I

until dark nips his heels and runs its hands across my haunches

and like a beautiful animal I mouth words,

small things he will never make out from the ground:

my name and how it is I love so many

strangers