Precise knife beats, a funeral march
For the tomatoes you chop in our kitchen.
We picked the paint together, I remember—

(“Yellow.
To make it seem bigger.”)

How quaint.

The beach is off-limits for conversation
(Is that how you planned to treat everything I loved?)
So, let’s talk about how this borrowed shirt once bore
My scent, beneath three spin cycles or more,
You’ve finished this race, yet you refuse to win.
(You hate tomatoes, and you never learnt how to swim.)

Peel their spring-kissed skin the way I did
Blame it on habit, or a presence
In your too-big sunlit tightlipped kitchen.
You heard me coming for miles
Your lover with sea-claimed smiles
Besotted.
Your bad miracle.
Your faithful little hen.

They’ll never hold me down
Headstones. Safe hells.
All the King’s horses and All the King’s men.

I comb your hair and undo the knots
And try kissing your neck until the trembling stops
And your hair drips saltwater over your shoulders like rain.
Put the knife down, let’s try again.

Like this: Fall asleep. Leave the blanket behind.
And wake up soaked to the bone tomorrow.
Wave-washed. Sea-kissed.
Open your damn mouth and swallow.

(This unchanging ruthless tidal love
Grave-held, omen-struck, despite. Despite.)
Will rise, fishnetted.
To be adored,
Be whetted.

Only true lovers know
Horror is overrated.