I am waiting for you to press into me.
For all of the scents collected by your cloak
to cling to the drape of my hair.
For the wind-rinsed dust on your skin
to glitter in the heat between us
within which nothing is legible
yet everything answers its ravenous question.

Wait

It's "happy hour" at Masu, and the boys with knives
are chatting about how the Beavers creamed the Bees
in yesterday's game. One hands me a saucer
piled with gossamer cucumber discs
and a confetti of octopus at once as light
and as heavy across my tongue as your balls
when you're begging me to finish you off.
I'm drinking a "Bitte Sidecar" -- brandy blended
with pear puree. Now the boys are discussing
the fish they made the supplier take back,
the ghosts of rude gestures skating upon
the currents of conversation, their hands
too busy with the slice and peel and wrap
of prepping for the evening crowd
to inhabit their disdain. I wish you were here
to share my kohada nigiri, its flavor heightened
after its flesh has been marked with loving exactitude --
a march of shallow slashes across its radiant skin
more eloquent than runes or saucy embroidery.
I press the inside of my wrist
against the damp, cool underside of my drink
to muffle the secrets its scars want to shout --
the ones that taste like homemade invisible ink,
all lemon and lightbulb, show and tell,
relics of religiously dramatic despair. They don't
deserve any more of my life
than what leaked through when I hadn't yet learned
how sweetness finds speech in many languages --
the rustle and drawl of ropes, the vowels
freed by well-wielded leather, the drift
and snap of ribbons -- with you, I've found
how "please" can also mean "you're welcome"
or "thank you" or "more," depending on
who's waiting or being waited upon. In lieu
of going up in smoke, I drench
my throat with flagons of water. I
will never be full until you are back
between my lips, perfuming me with heat.