cause enough for perfume

perhaps my very existence

invites your lips

.

however you are the reason

i’ve taken to writing invisible love poems

in the finest of rust belt drinking establishments

.

my fingertips tracing desires

through saturday night flooded bar top wastelands

of dissipating beer foam and  7 and 7’s gone errant

.

i’ve become convinced jesus won’t return

to fly us all back to glory land on his private salvation jet

unless i have a bottle of wild turkey in my left hand

and your hand in my right

stumbling through 3 a.m. street lamp heavens

beside a monument to our first kiss

.

i’ve watched the english patient twice for chrissakes

my nights have become ee cummings sketches

.

your absence  is cause enough for perfume

.

we could be a kate chopin novel

.

i want to share with you everything of value i know

i want to give you all my favorite books

i want to be the woman who pulls you into her

when you’ve stepped too close to the edge of the subway platform

i’ll teach you which one the salad fork is without anyone taking a hint

.

i’ll tell you the dirtiest jokes i know in crowded elevators

i’ll buy us an old plymouth just so

i can lean over from my best girl shotgun seat

and unlock the driver’s door for you

before we head to the drive-in

.

i want  to learn to knit

just so i can knit you an ugly afghan

to cover you up with on the couch

when my fried chicken and a novel

have conspired to take you

into blissful sleep adrift

.

give you passed out kisses you’ll never know about

and present you with the perfect hangover cure

coffee made and aspirin come christmas morning

.

i want to be the woman who loves you so well

she remembers

to grab the reading glasses you always forget

before we walk out the door

of this daydream

in which

i am perfectly content

.