TOBI COGSWELL

Surrealist, Mon Amour


I

A ladybug lands on her collarbone.
He wants to lick it off her,
get some good fortune for himself,
but she unrolls the window, tells
him to gently help the ladybug free.
He picks it up with fingernails - square,
like unopened Valentines, the same way
he makes his bed – precise.
Her collarbone free she tells him
to lick it anyway, and she drives straight,
the car honing a razor’s path through desire.
He does not wear scent. She leans toward
him anyway. Wants to take a picture of him
in front of the window and kiss his neck.

II

The label in her shirt says 13 years.
She tucks it in and pours a glass of wine,
it makes no difference. Change is heavy.
When she empties it out of her purse
she walks lighter, looks at the cherry blossoms
in the valley of hearts. Hearts floating like
paintings of melting ice cream between
green and purple hills.
Her roll of stamps also has
cherry blossoms but they are for
right-handers. She awkwardly pays
her debts and otherwise does kind things.
She has left-handed scissors and a left-handed
fish knife. No one else thinks about this.

III

They can’t take their eyes off their hands.
They talk about them over and over until
their hands become organic. They would
name them but then the beautiful
sea-creatures of them might come alive,
undulating in their exhalations and
changed breaths. What would be the
explanation they do not know, and they take
turns raising them to their lips, his finger
innocently yet deliberately stroking the
inside of her wrist, her pulse keeping time
with their unspoken words and unblinking eyes.
Time is interesting. So is quiet. So is the sea.