I was thirsty for you. I licked the brine off
my lips in the small room.
You were in bed, too sick to move,
the glistening tan of your arms exposed.
I watched you, rising
and falling.
Wind buffeted the little cabin,
I drew my knitted shawl more tightly
around my shoulders.
My bathing suit was full of seaweed.
I ran my parched tongue over my teeth. Everything
tasted of chalk.
I became bone, split
to the marrow, dried out.
I wanted to quench my thirst with your saliva, drink it in
through the straw of your sealed lips, but I could not.
Your lips too, were parched,
had little perforations in them that salt water makes.
The sun crashed through the windows, rushed out through the door.
Starfish lay along the windowsills.
The pallid joint of a wave flexed and pointed,
gulls flew by screaming in hoarse, broken voices.
I arranged myself around you.
Your heart beat the color of dust in the narrow bed,
working up sand flies.
Furtively, I kissed you, a tiny kiss, roving over your mouth and nose.
I settled my hand in your hair.
Alison Carb Sussman, reprinted with permission from Black Wool Cape,
Unsolicited Press, 2022.
