As If Kissing were Enough

Night comes with a trap door in it, everybody knows this. Blue jays and crows and later still juncos. Soldiers built the gallows the day before, testing them with sandbags around dusk, all the sounds all day making it into the jail where Mary Surratt waited. A nexus between Buddy Holly's death and Randy Rhoads' that does not mean as much as I'd like it to mean. Scattering salt. George gives away his wife's clothing within weeks of her death, five years later Ma still treats Dad's closet like a shrine. I stopped drinking when it was clear that no amount of drunk could kill the daemon. Hanging up my jacket, kicking off my boots. Imagine making out in the dimlit foyer, not rushing, as if kissing were enough. One begins to make peace with lingering and with women's anger, which are not separate. Certain donut recipes, certain ways of making coffee. We could be tenderer, we could be something fires can't destroy. My God my God, this love.