BE MINE

BY ALEXANDRA CAPRARA

“CUFFING SEASON”

only recognized by bruises on wrists and wine stains on necklines the colour of my lipstick matches the Merlot we’re drinking and the love bites you left on my collarbone one of them kind of looks like a heart, I think. did you do that one purpose? to claim me as your own chain me to you as a lover’s destiny where Venus aligns with the sun so everything is suddenly warm again? it’s a fleeting feeling, like heat on lips and thighs and earlobes i read your palms with my hand clutching yours and my eyes closed head thrown back and lips in the delicate quivering shape of your name. your heart line is curved up towards your ring finger and slightly tapered i’ll remember what that means when I want to recount the way your body feels the poetry I’ll write about you in the annual ceremony of rose bushes being suffocated in snow