Ella Flores
Tarnish, you’ll squeeze my finger a layer
less. This idea inherent in you: a lineage
of number-less digits, a time-lapse of falling
into sink disposals. Of being found again.
You say this is a false belonging. The silence
of the room, do you hear it?
Behind curled curtains, a dog’s whimper
outside, the telephone wire’s pulse,
a raccoon’s sudden skitter across the street: all our grandparents, siblings, children are
dead.
Their voices only last inside their ears. No one’s
on the sidewalk looking into a bedroom where,
from the sink counter, you watch my outline
shower; the ballerina pose it strikes to shave
its armpits. This idea inherit in me. A layer more.
Let the fingers tarnish this time. Let your coda
decay, clatter, roll. You can find a where
no music stays, a who that buries you too
one day, one less blanket to toss, to turn
moonlight into follow––if you want, you can
pass out with me here, beneath the door
crack, between the places that pass you on.