point A to point B across the tiny twenty by twenty
span of your apartment’s bedroom window.
(I did this when I was little, only I watched them scatter
across the front of my parents’ windshield instead.
I always imagined they were escaping something.)
After, I’d wrap myself up in your white sheets,
get lost in their squeaky clean existence—
the way they carried an inherent absence
of the day before. I always noted how your bed
was as comforting as a blank slate,
like every time I left it I became someone new.
I was waiting for the validating jingle
of your car keys, the approval of your step,
the ratifying creak of your front door as
it opened up to me. Always.
And I’m sorry I dirtied the stack of dinner plates
and cereal bowls that pervade your sink.
I’m sorry for the soggy Fruit Loops,
the bleeding marshmallow Lucky Charm rainbow,
the cemented Frosted Flakes building a grainy
mish-mash barricade in your drain.
I’m sorry about the crusted faint rings
left behind by the careless clunk of my mug
against your coffee table, the way they look like
Venn diagrams silently trying to sort out our problems,
or caffeinated crops circles posing evidence for
the invasive memory of my coffee breath.
But I know you never miss a spot.
I know you bleached these things out and
wiped them away with a quilted paper towel
in one final pristine stroke.
