We’re desperate for the touch
of a glove or a sleeve or a lapel.
That’s all we ask: proximity to
anything that’s not us or ours.
We live where families are sad
jittery movies of themselves.
Friends are rampaging rivers
bringing us end tables and night tables
and breakfast bars with one stool.
It seems every closet in the world
vomits up clothes we can wear.
As for the young woman who lives
nearby and paints her nails in
different colors in no discernible
pattern: knowing her name would
be the same as marrying her.
Once she waved at us in the space
between our houses and I dreamed
of her hand for nearly a year.
There are no rivals where we live.
We chip away at the lichen of
our loneliness, our skin and home.
We have little else to offer each other.
We know we have no chance of winning:
no one will ever take us or want to.
