STARES Rafael Alcantar, Jr.
I’ve never seen the cage that is the roof of your mouth, or the underside of your tongue, where you keep secrets behind that familiar row of teeth, those corners of a mouth where I find myself in dreams: offering you a cup of coffee and filling it to the brim, prolonging our balancing act, a brief stumbling of fingertips, I trace the veins around your knuckles up to your elbow; feel the thick skin on your knees.