Downdraft
There’s really no difference between
a tongue in someone else’s mouth 
 
and a tongue in your own. I can watch
another version of myself pouring you
 
back into the decanter. When you left,
the bed turned into a giant lung beside
 
a window. I pulled my legs up into it. 
Those days we all needed something. 
 
My feet flung out the passenger window, 
soles black from walking the quarry.
 
I insisted you carry me across the tracks 
even though it was years since the last
 
engine rolled through town. We’d even 
tied my toaster to the rails to prove it.
 
Where did you go with your Indiana-
accent hasta maña, handful of Saltines 
 
and mayo, secret love of televised golf?
The way your hands shook even when
 
you weren’t nervous. I can’t pinpoint 
exactly when it started, who made 
 
the first move, whether we were in line 
at the bank, on a bus downtown, or just 
 
ended up naked and didn’t question it, 
set our clocks back two hours. Hot gravel 
 
whirled to the sky on the night you drove 
away, and I took the yard boys down
 
to my crawl space. A tornado raged
out to Garrettsville. Nobody noticed 
 
the shattered marquee lights, one white 
bass blown out of the pond, flapping 
 
on the hood of a tractor. Your baseball
cap nestled in between the concrete 
 
frog and rain-soaked telephone book.
There was one bird left for every tree.
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