Hips for Miles

A former rendition of myself
thanked him for letting us use
his apartment-- complete
with absent roommate--
to reacquaint one another
with our precious animal magnetism.
"I'll be back tomorrow morning,"
he said as he departed
down West 50th
after nodding her hello
and goodbye in one motion
under the shower of streetlights.
It didn't seem like long enough.
Now it feels fossilized:
the way it used to be;
an alternate dimension.

She had hips for miles
and could make a hipster smile;
dark features of my people
with a muse-blessed hand
and a mind I could wander
for a lifetime.
Her brute, she called me
or maybe that was someone else--
Yes, I'm positive of that.
I had softer nicknames.
We had softer nights.

She's already subway bound
by the time my buddy enters.
I'm standing in my boxers
drinking water piped from mountains.
"But what the Hell happened to the wall?"
he asks, his eyes interrogating spots
above the pillow where white slits of plaster
cry out against the hunter green paint.
I blush through my beard, mumbling no apology.
It's not my fault her nails are the claws of a tigress
though that safari should've been
the beginning.