Won’t You Be My Valentine
By now you are just the space
my lover touches me around, her care
unwittingly conjuring you. You left
an opening to talk to me—your voice
speckles through—but I miss you
when I feel unknowable, a tongue
too swollen to tell. My body is a dream
I once had of freedom, a foreign
thing that eats silver and loves spiders. How
can I tell my lover of my craving for metal,
how will she understand the watchful
eye of the spider. I long for you--
my only witness—no one else
knows me in that particular
crisis. Not even me. Only you
can tell me what my face becomes,
which animal I sound like, only you
can embroider the scene—the doe gutted
or the doe leaping away.
By now you are just the space
my lover touches me around, her care
unwittingly conjuring you. You left
an opening to talk to me—your voice
speckles through—but I miss you
when I feel unknowable, a tongue
too swollen to tell. My body is a dream
I once had of freedom, a foreign
thing that eats silver and loves spiders. How
can I tell my lover of my craving for metal,
how will she understand the watchful
eye of the spider. I long for you--
my only witness—no one else
knows me in that particular
crisis. Not even me. Only you
can tell me what my face becomes,
which animal I sound like, only you
can embroider the scene—the doe gutted
or the doe leaping away.