by Haley Lasché

You were born in the sign of reassurance.
Your open mouth is filled with time. It closes around the stain of my
lips

which is shaped like a baby world.
It is smaller than the earth; it is two time zones like you and me.

We are separate now
and holding our hands away from our bodies

pushing each other away. The salt from each other’s hands
painted on our palms, a grid for new sweat to break through.

The journeys we both take are not over water;
they are through condensation

and the memory of your skin evaporates against

no more words

than

*

Haley Lasché has her MFA from Hamline University. Her poems and essays have appeared and are forthcoming in lit mags anthologies and websites such White Space, Poemeleon, The Crab Creek Review andDossier Journal. In addition to writing, she is a college instructor and a punk-rock fashion model.