Here's to the boy with uncombed hair
who pulled harder than I could push,
whose kisses were broken bottlenecks,
who loved me like I'd be gone the next day,
because I would be, and fucked as if he resented me,
fierce and insistent, scalding vicious red
hickeys down my neck and chest.

All in a line the bones of his spine
and my wild body bile-sick against his back's cool arch.
My cracked lips remember an old wetness.
I am miles away here in my fever bed,
but his memory curdles in my stomach
and shifts beneath the surface of my sleep.
Without his resting pulse to mark my pace,
the morning whiteness burns my eyes.

We ate overripe oranges into the stilly nights
and played Marco Polo with searching mouths.
Once he poured salt onto his open palm,
put an icecube on top of the salt,
poured more salt on the ice and made
an angry fist. "Imagine it is my
heart you are holding," I said,
as his hand shook from the pain.
"Make a warmth to melt my snow."