You are sitting on the bed as I write this

Rhoni Blankenhorn
 

It is like a house where something eventful
has happened. A presence that spreads
like a water stain on the ceiling, releases irregular droplets

onto linoleum floor. We make toast,
tender jam with toothpicks, scratch raspberry poems

onto parts that have darkened. I try to write you
into it, but misspell a word,
have to re-toast. Crumbs look like sand

and I imagine we are on an island floating in the Pacific.
Or we are an island, joined at the isthmus

that is our fingers interlaced. The island could be your bed,
where we try at awake and asleep. It is the heat
that sticks our thighs to chair seats.

Sweat stains are damp continents expanding
from our armpits. I reflect your face in salt. You chew the poem,

melt sweet letters down your throat. Fruity pink swells
across your fingers, your lips. You lick small vowels
from cracks between your teeth.

Rhoni Blankenhorn is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied mostly visual art, some psychology and a sprinkling of other subjects including writing. A Northern Californian at heart, she has been ensnared by New York and currently resides in Brooklyn.