Smalltalk

Knowing that the keyholes between your fingers won’t take me laughing down daylight cobblestones, knowing your winter blue eyes, water off snow, won’t shelter the perfect controlled growth of corsage or skim carefully along the dress that my children will admire in photographs years later, pointing sticky fingers, asking “is that daddy?” Seeing in you alleyways dripping water long stale, hands knotted up tense against cold stone, wearing thin gloves the next days to hide the skin your impatience rubbed raw, Seeing in you the power to take, crashing mouths with no pretense at intimacy, to rip inside, to curse and destroy the echoing halls of the way I have painted myself, And imagining myself coming to shreds already, it’s no wonder we have a hard time with conversation.