Cocaine Roman

He rubbed his numbed ape-gums
with his index finger and fell
to the lounge with Lisa — her eyelashes
spoking his breath like spider-legs.

Time and lines run away
from themselves —
the Genesis of each eye
blooming black—
the tachycardic heart
swelling veins to chase
the tails of themselves.

He calls her Mother by mistake —
I cringe, she doesn’t. I’m the ghost
in the corner without pyrotechnics,
watching his nail score the mirror
that holds the next fix.

He takes me back a year
when that Jeep span like a coin —
spat itself at the barrier
and unloaded on both lanes.

We picked off slivers of steel
for a week, found nails
preserved in the windscreen;
mosquitos in amber.

We traced our fingers over the obituaries
for days — I resigned over it —
like now — my lips over Lisa’s tongue
and then the Shakespearean bed swap —

Roman moving through her
like a swallowed drink, and I’m left —
a passenger.
.