Stepping out of. He presses the ticket stub in my hand. Mouth still licorice. And buttered. And sweet
he asks. If I’d like a ride home. And I’d rather not. Walk.

[ ]

Something which sounds. Like away.Like everything wind.

Like everything rushing into.Everywhere not.

[ ]

Night ebbs in me. Water. Clementine haze in his Camaro. Idled outside my door. On my breast. A
meteorite dangling through. Silver thread. Silver light.
Waylaid. Fire-bright. On the windshield.
The flaring stars. Deciduous. Everything which is. A hand and another. Rasping for heat.

[ ]

Spindled branches knocking on my apartment’s window. A maple’s face peering. In. The streetlamps
making. Mechanically. Many moons. Electrically seething: did you. did you. want. to come in

[ ]

Shoal of leaves swimming.Green through the unmade.

[ ]

A stranger’s hand. Slow-turning the door knob into. Errantry. As his scarlet boots step across. And into
the living. Room. He pulls his shoelace through. He unbuttons. The first of many. Fingers through his
gelled mullet. In the threshold. My own hand on. My own canyoned neck.

[ ]

Everywhere light casts.Everywhere a tourniquet of shade.

[ ]

His chest. On mine. His cologne. Bonfire smoke. His heart. Keeps beating. On the green couch. 

Still. I recline. I ruin. I meteorite. O. I. Could I. Could just. I could just. Disappear.

---

Temperance Aghamohammadi is an Acolyte of the Exquisite. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Meridian, The Missouri Review, and Bear Review, among others.