Old Sheets

Cold Sheets

by magnolia wilson

All I ever needed was to share a cigarette with you, Watch words billow forth from your smooth taut lips.

These truths permeate evening’s air, resonate Like tolling bells in a mosque that calls prayer.

And with you, there is still so much to pray for. To know the scent of your skin, whether it is citrus bright or mahogany deep. To watch your breasts sway any sinner’s doubt that life is not beautiful.

I’ve come to press you against cold sheets And place delicate things on your chest. A feather, a used postage stamp, a newborn girl.

To savor you the way a girl gums a ripe fig, Split our antiquity into pieces with my tongue, Scrape you clean with my teeth.

And while I imagine us pushing chairs against the wall, Slow dancing to Patsy Cline in the living room, I sit, smoking in silence, to study your candle dim frame, Envying the mosquito who drinks your blood.