26th Anniversary
Alison Carb Sussman
Touch me, don’t touch me. Tentative, my icy hand brushes your hot length. You turn away, blankets over you, an impregnable mass. Moonlight crawls through the bedroom window, the cat’s eyes blaze. Talk to me, don’t talk to me. You breathe through the mask, dive, sliding through warm pillows. In the living room you read P.D. James, or play piano, blind fingered, Tyner’s free-wheeling jazz tunes tickling the hairs in my ears. Come to me, don’t come to me. My wifely duty. Wok in the kitchen. Chicken in Teriyaki sauce with broccoli and wild rice. You on Facebook, appear at the table after it cools. Each of us, staring glazed eyed at the TV: Arctic penguins collide with salesgirls in a 19th century shop. Bumping into furniture in the dark. I open my arms to receive you, you are ash. I wait. I wait. Nothing of you drifts down. The tree near our building cut off at the roots. My arms ache from not enfolding you. Black slits your eyes. My hands reach for the fuzz of your hair Once your kisses spun me into the Ethernet. We are. We are. We are not. Getting off the bus you go through the motions of helping me
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