August 9, 2012

• m'amusent, m'inspirent no. 40

  
  

  At 7:35 A.M, you lay your tired body on mine
  before peeling off, like a slow band-aid.

  At 8:40 you sprint home and make instant coffee.

  At 9:45 we finally drink it, cold.
  I finish your leftover half.

  By 10:50 you are already breathless.
  I live for every time we overlap.

  When 11:55 comes I spend the entire minute convincing you to stay.
  You never do.

  By noon I put my hands on your shoulders and say, “Baby,
  you’re getting thin. All this running in circles and barely sitting down to eat.”

  At 1:05 you tell me that while you were gone,
  15,300 babies were born.

  At 2:10 you don’t say a word,
  just come in and kiss me for sixty seconds straight.

  At 3:15 we sit quiet, listening to rain falling everywhere
  in the world at once: all 15,000 tons.

  At 4:20 we pull a little from the tight joint I keep behind your ear.
  You do not inhale.

  At 5:25 you meet me for happy hour.
  My neck already salted, a lime wedged in my teeth,
  a shot of tequila sitting on the bar.

  At 6:30 I hear the ticking.
  I count your heartbeat like seconds between thunderclaps.

  By 7:35 I can see you in the distance,
  each second a tease until you drape over me.
  We always love quick and you never let me hold you.
  I dream of drinking you through a straw.

  At 8:40 you watch my beard grow 0.00027 of an inch.

  At 9:45 we do not speak.
  Too many people have died since we last met.

  At 10:50 we pray for a meteor,
  at least a clumsy kid to spill sugar in our gears.

  11:55 is my favorite.
  We’re only apart for mere minutes.

  But at midnight you’ll apologize sixty times
  because it will always be like this.

  At 1:04 AM I am already sleeping.
  It’s exhausting loving someone
  who is constantly running away.

  
  

  —  Megan Falley, “What the Hour Hand Said to the Minute Hand”

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