*
there’s a world where no sip of coffee is too hot.
this is your favorite kind of morning;
there is no pain today. only light
and a hint of bitterness in your mouth
but you wanted it to be there.
the only place we feel safe is
inside of a fluorescent shell with a welcome sign.
“i wonder if I knew you in a past life,”
i say to you as we sit cross legged and facing each other
in the red leather diner booth. “you wouldn’t have liked me,”
you tell me and pour two packets of sugar
into your motor oil coffee. sometimes you can choose the pain you feel
and when you feel it, it will feel good.
the coffee is hot,
come drink.
maybe we also feel safe when we see the
sunrise without sleeping;
we had tried to sleep in the back of my
2002 subaru forester (matte red)
but it felt better to stay up and stare at the sky (each other)
until it didn’t make sense to
do anything other than keep moving.
“but I remember,” i insist.
the waitress comes to refill your cup and
she touches my shoulder and she has your face
and you say nothing of this, just stare on as
the steam enclosed in your hands swirls
up and up and up.
i try to wipe the sleep from my eyes but
the light in my irises just falls into my hand as i
poke at the yolk with a tarnished fork and
a pale yellow light surrounds us for a moment
that is also an eternity.
where we are is bright, fatty, warm
and just beyond words.
here, suspended in both
time and air i am able to see you clearly and
feel the end of our love hurtling towards me
like an eighteen wheeler
on a two lane massachusetts
highway at night but I am not afraid of an end
because it also necessitates a beginning.
the lights are bright.
a clock strikes 5 for the fifth time this morning and we move on.
the smell of the
oil and grease didn’t
leave my hair or clothing
for hours after the
neon and chrome
evaporated behind us
into the highway.
you say
“I’ve never had better,”
and reach for my thigh
but somehow miss and hit my stomach, full.
somewhere
there is a diner
and in it we are together.
i still feel the coffee on my teeth.