i’ve been working on this for the better part of 3 years.  it’s close to done, but not quite.  comments/advice/thoughts from anyone (and i really like people who don’t write!) welcome.

(1)

A dim red glow blinks at me, I blink back
6 30 a breath : in 6 30 a breath : out
“Iiit’s the morning show with—” and press SNOOZE before it begins,
to dive back under the comforter and breathe cotton.
My sheet fragrance is organic thread and faint coconut, and
I wish cotton thread didn’t smell the same underneath
our own scents. Your pillow covers smelled like this, layered
cologne, Axe deodorant, then strongly of you, like a boy
desperately claiming to be a man.

(2)

At the foot of the bed, I am clutching a pillow
striped blue on white and Hellboy plays at him
while the television glare falls on me. He types
taktaktaktak TAK taktaktak taktak (DELETE)
I am distracting, and thinking about things I think then
that I cannot say. I shouldn’t have,

(3)

or could—? Tones waver in the air, the nightstand ringing
cutting into him. He stares into the sun
strong and blinding, and flinches, then
laments how she often broke his staring contest
with the late afternoon, standing
in just that spot, grumbling
that she never could reach him by dialing.
“Was it so hard to answer your phone?”
No. Perhaps I wish I had.

(4)

We do inappropriate things at inappropriate times,
when did 6 30 become
7 15 : 7 15 leap : 7 16 entangled in a sheet : 7 16
stumble mumbling Christ! trip free, scramble into the shower
7 17 : ?

It is raining blood and sweat and tears in Jakarta
though you are not home (I thank God for this);
it smells like murder and money in New York City
but all I can do
is read and talk incessantly, about Indonesian casualties.

(5)

We are creatures of habit
because even worlds apart
some might argue decades,
we sit cross-legged, sipping:
yours unrelenting and bitter, of black double brew
mine sweet, almost sickeningly creamy and embarrassingly beige
the joke was always “would you like some coffee with your milk?”;
backs or feet—but some part of you nonetheless, and me—
against cold hardwood, wondering reluctantly and regretfully
how alone the other is

or if
someone else twirls her fingers in his hair
someone else bites at her ear between sarcastic remarks

or if
such habits fall away with the people who cultivated them
leaving shadows of neuroses
and hands that know nothing besides to fidget,
clammy, uncomfortable
beneath vivacious conversations
about international politics and war or
the unfair softness of cosmopolitan palms,
bred in relativity of luxury.

(6)

There are 10,042 miles from safety to the falling sky
give or take, from where she begins and he ends.

The news sputtering on about Southeast Asia
she doesn’t remember turning on,

and so
she wakes up with a jolt
90 days, 2 hours, and 3 years between them.

For him, it is dinnertime in company
teetering on drunk, that he can taste
imaginary cumin on the chicken and that
Bitang beer is irreconcilably Heineken, so

with a grimace and the same
90 days, 2 hours, and 3 years between them
he curses the involuntary nature of thoughts,

(7)

but hearts leap, don’t they?,
where hands and feet won’t dare reach.