The first time I heard you speak,
your words flew around
the long hallways in my brain,
temporarily empty as you amazed me
with your crystal smile.

You were sweet as a jazz record,
cute as a French postcard,
quaint as a tea-kettle,
supple as a willow branch,
and I didn’t know how to respond to such old-fashioned charm.

Whenever I saw you
I drank you up,
lapping like a thirsty dog
out of a dirty bowl,
and you had me satiated
with your radiance,
the fluidity of your movements, curve ­between thumb and finger,
and the way you left my heart suspended in my throat
like a big dumb fish,
struggling for breath because
you poisoned my body
with specks of lead in my blood like pepper,
from the wells
in your eyes
and mouth
and other, secret places,
like the sweet dampness of your neck.

What we cultivated was
dark and healthy like the soil,
bearing new shoots
pushing blindly against the moist ground,
wet as the mouth that births
such beautiful words,
and I whispered,
“don’t ever leave.”
Your voice contains the spice of a Southern twang,
just enough to make me smile,
and you said,
“we’ll see.”

You hair carries the wind,
you talk of bigger things than me and my city,
and I know you are restless to be
away.

And selfishly,
I drank you up too often and too long,
and the sun dried up all your smiles,
your wells turned bitter,
and you left in a cloud of dust
just as winter settled upon the city.
You left my eyes stinging and
remembering
how words used to drip lazily
off your tongue, mystifying my senses,
and how you are still a little
in my blood.