We are not Kissing and the River

by Mark Bibbins

Mark Bibbins

tricks the boat. Even at night,
colors freeze when they would
rather bleed. He likes delay,

he says, the long ascent to sex.
[first his finger to his lips]
He of the somewhere-wadded-up

mainsail, half hard and too tired
[to the knuckle now] to try—
when in doubt he demurs

then dissolves, spooked
as I and twice as strange.
The glass we handed back

and forth sits on the sill:
mouth- and fingerprints
overlap, more reasonable

as a form of mimesis [out now
and glistening] than simple
trajectory—and what about

the bridge, under which
the boat [back in, slowly,
slowly] has slipped, its

chain of lights, distorted
by the edge of the glass,
just now turned on?

From: 
The Dance of No Hard Feelings





Last updated December 12, 2022