Quixotic

Over the phone,
he was kissing you good night
though you did not ask.
A month ago,
you imagined growing grey hairs with him,
sleeping to his breathing
till your eyelids grew heavy with age,
till your hands grew into spotted, pink petals,
till your top lip grew vertical lines
meeting your lower lip
now thin, from years of hard kissing.

Instead,
you woke to his cold feet.

So
you learned the art of forgetting.
Scraping the taste of his neck
from your tongue,
growing a callous on each fingertip,
hard as buttons
from not touching.
Not touching
the brown paper bag
the bruising, blue plums inside
the shiny wood floors
the white-washed walls of each locked room
the dirty fork with only two tines.
You smudge out the tears
naming them,
“Not good enough.”
You mutter to yourself,
“One day
the mustached man will comb out
the landmines in his heart; it is not my job.”

For DJT