The Sapling

Solitude brought a smile to my face

---it was something that never belonged to anyone else

But we were the best of the best

---and the worst

and chumps for what was always tingly

I let your fingers go one by one by one,

like a nursery rhyme

---and I let you climb up my vertebrae

like we were playing Chutes and Ladders

again

like we used to

And you would get down there

and measure your nails with mine

never pushing to tell me about this little piggy

---or that

I opened my legs right up

for you

and only you

because you knew how to throw the change up

And even though we were in a moonlight serenade,

you were very convincing when you said

I was more beautiful without my mask

I was not sorry for how I spoke to you

---just as you never apologized for the tunnel vision

But oh how I loved to shiver there by myself

with the impression of our tousled hospital corners

and the haunting of this splendid phantom