Tina Turnstile

the saddest songs
make sense to her,
and I guess
so do I. 

there are cookies
on her nightstand,
I am half-sleeping 
on her shoulder. 

she jumped the turnstile
and landed in my life
the yesterday before tomorrow,
then we went shopping. 

she made chilaquiles
for dinner,
I asked how she is
no one's wife yet.

if I wanted a girl who writes poetry,
I could go to any bar in Murray Hill
at 2am and scrape one off the ground,
but that's not what I wanted. 

Arthur Rimbaud fell in love with Paul Verlaine,
got shot in the wrist by him,
then saw him jailed for it,
but just said love is blood. 

love is like accidentally
scratching a scab,
love is a scar catalog,
blood in gauntlets or list poems. 

her legs are soft against mine,
and her apartment is quiet,
unlike our hearts, here, 
under the stairs, under our ribs.