you know it already: the point in summer when skin is enough
to suffocate in. She’ll leave you breathless with lavender
behind your ear— it’s pub garden treasure, ignored
like answers, I mean:
were we ever going to win? Foregone quiz I’m starting to think
your thigh against mine is real in a way that a mirage is— not
enough. Our deadline is setting and I want us to make it
home without dying on these drunk bikes. If you ask me I’ll never speak
of June 21st again. A non-date.

I want to be soft. That inhale-exhale
soft: a pattern, cut
from a different cloth, cotton underwear soft,
100% pure, and then some more,
more like hot metal soft: to bend
like breaking is just a bad dream.
I want to be so soft that no one needs me
to be strong. Winter sunlight
soft. Forehead kiss soft. I want
the relief of the riverbank
after a flood— renegotiating edges
in the soft of the mud.