On my birthday we drove to Kansas City
and fucked on the couch of the rental
while the TV was on. That night
we saw Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare
in the Park. The understudies sat beside
us on a blanket in the grass. Drank wine
and whispered. That’s nearly all I remember
of that summer, though I know there was more,
know what you’ve told me. How I’d tie you
to the bed, and go for walks. Smoking cigarettes
on the back porch and arguing. Packing up
to move, I couldn’t keep your face straight,
a migraine setting in, and while I lay
on the couch, you drove to a car wash,
thinking of what to do if I really lost my mind.
I remember us flipping that couch on its back
while we made love. Cooking soup, though
it was nearly one hundred outside. You wearing
my shirt with the name of a beer across the front
that I couldn’t drink anymore. You masturbating
in bed beside me while I worked on a poem.
Some kind of care that I haven’t known since,
brief as it was, and maybe because it was brief. Us
shopping for Twizzlers at the corner market,
buying two brands of cigarettes each time I went
in. We spent so much time worrying
that the other would leave. When we left,
it was just like we’d rehearsed, just like we’d seen.