pioneertown.

LIBERTÉ 

after Lautrec's Alone

By Josh Gaines

A hand moved
a wave along the inside of a thigh. 
Through a once-white slip
hand faded, folded between legs
knees rose slight, and back arched
and I think her mouth opened. I imagined
a sound, small
as dust on cheeks beneath eyes 
dampened a darker copper.
She rolled to her side
clenched the hand in legs
her pillow-spilled hair an uncertain hue. 

I became a clock face, 
watched as seconds
past disappointment or desire or 
motion of instants,
counting and recounting
time like it was 
time that mattered
and not how she was spent.

I became her secrets,
her thoughts flickered memory
behind eyelids lit in green,
through her fingers' damp.
The alarm seemed to echo from my ribs.

When I woke to a room, empty
but for the pale blue-shadows,
I imagined we were still in dirty Paris
when there were no time lines to settle
where we still had the time and a whispering room
to tell these dreams:
where I could say with some certainty,
her neck was soft
and her hair, was red.