YOU'RE SO IMPRESSIVE (poem)

~kavehorvanya

Hey boyfriend. There’s copper in the jargon

of your back. There’s a swamp made from velvet. I’m talking

about the clutches where your muscles divot, about whittling

a tree trunk frosted over with mud… Or just imagining it:

glass bodies wrestling impressions into the long grass.

Impressions in the fog, peatsmoke on blotting paper. Boyfriend

as smudge. My dreams are set in a pink forest wet with blood mist.

Hey stranger. There’s a base instinct we all love to write about:

the one where you stuff me with fruit and I tear out your stomach.

But it’s so frustrating to feel like an animal and then to see you

at the mosque, the university, you with your friends

as they polish your neck. And then to not see you at all

until the showing. Did you see me from across the window?

Hey baby. Nice shirt. I thought we were hostile but that’s me

wanting it. I swear there’s something deadening the sightlines

though the earth is clear. My love is set in a dream where

my love actually happens. We still don’t talk but while you’re here

come take my jacket off for me. Come take a look.