(4) Overwrite/Free-Write (Week Three)

Note: lots and lots of pockets (i.e., gaps), I know. Thus, a free-write and overwrite is born. Imagine, hm?

Do you call me your barefoot

Beatrice—think me deserving

of such a beautiful fate? Know

I’m no martyr—could never

Though we started early, two nights

into Italy. Though we made love

for the first time in a one-cot

closet, and though the second and third

no better a rendezvous, we were never

romantics here or before. I almost forget

this started with a guitar lesson, with Georgia

and your version of Penelope

in my room, in my name

after you left. Though you should know

when I wished my euro into Trevi

it wasn’t you

but last night, us refiguring

Spoleto. I wanted to write you

out of the romance, out

of the waltz we made with a little

less than your songs. I swear

I’m not a fan-girl.

Later, you said my eyes seem green, not

their usual grey—then you were an isthmus

on my tongue, the difficulty of lips, of lost

verbs, in another language. You should know

I don’t know how to write us

into

and I can’t decide if being a poem

or being a lover is better. But both

make me, bind me, you.

Later, soft hands and an explanation.

Owe the truth nothing, I remind

you.

My lips are an inferno—not sexy

and more like death. But you

seem more mine than all this, more

I’m affection in the bottom of

your wine glass.

You apologize for being

irresponsible