thunderstorm

there were apricots and broken plates and shy palms

E.B. White wrote his letters before I was born but the pages
of that collection dented my lifeline

the first time I ever felt beautiful was in those dilated eyes
drunk or something else lit that lambent flame that tickles
my lips and once that sea parted part of the world became my eternal oyster

with every U-turn, the screeching tires, the memory
of the buzz cuts and identical bricks and the sand
and swallowing every single stair for four flights and unraveling
every single thread of a white and blue hammock and every single thread
of my wavy locks

when your fingertips calloused over and i couldn't draw blood
we still laughed

when our hearts calloused over and we couldn't pump blood
did we keep laughing