If I could see you stretching out above me,
I would meet your unravel of flesh and bone
and sneak past the meat into something cleaner.
I think I would like to see you empty, to
feel the edge of your butterfly hips,
reach inside your white lattice,
and cup those bones until they slow their fluttering.
I’d like to watch you stretched out
in a car, hovering in the wet air,
with a wave of red heat climbing up your neck
and the handle of your manual window rattling in my ears
gouging a bruise into my back as we move.
Or in your parents’ solar room deep in the winter,
among the plants in their terra cotta pots.
I want to watch the condensation gather and melt
down the windows and white air fold out of your mouth.
I would watch the wooden beams and catch
the sweat beading around your collar
to feel it cooling on my chest.
I wouldn’t watch you, nothing but your mouth.
I would carve great rows in your arms
and trace the empty between them,
hoping to find which bone is the cleanest.