nine.

Look, I say, I don't know what to tell you.
I don't know
what you want
to hear.
I want to say I love you,
but there's a bruise on my hip in the
shape of the hibiscus we wrapped round the
deck the summer I didn't get hitched, and
I think that means Tuesday. It's
just what we are, what I am,
and you fall
silent while my voice fills all
the uneven gaps—
that said gasp, for a moment, and I almost
left it there, uncertain
the way I often am—but
in the end I chose sense over significance,
and that is why, I say, we could never
work out.