There is a way
if we want
into everything
I’ll eat the chicken carbonara and you eat the veal, the olives, the small
and glowing
loaves of bread
I’ll eat the waiter, the waitress
floating through the candled dark in shiny black slacks
like water at night
The napkins, folded into paper boats, contain invisible Japanese poems
You eat the forks
all the knives, asleep and waiting
on the white tables
What do you love?
I love the way our teeth stay long after we’re gone, hanging on despite
worms or fire
I love our stomachs
turning over
the earth
*
There is a way
if we want
to stay, to leave
Both
My lungs are made out of smoke ash sunlight air
Particles of skin
The invisible floating universe of kisses rising up in a sequined helix
of dust and cinnamon
Breathe in
Breathe out
I smoke
unfiltered Shepheard’s Hotel cigarettes
from a green box, with a dog on the cover, I smoke them
here, and I’ll smoke them
there
from The End of the WestFind it in the library
Copyright © 2009 Michael Dickman
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.