They search for
the One
while I embrace you, squeeze
you like a stress-ball into a crumple of gray foam.  We snuggle
like post-sex lovers who actually like each other.  We laugh
at our inside jokes – the Lone Ranger walks into a bar… We dart
knowing glances at the
coffee shop lurker
cemetery widow
black rhinoceros on the African plain.

I met you when
I fell to bed through
mattresses of glass
slammed onto a block of ice
at the news of daddy leaving.
You uncurled my fists from the sheets.

When she took my children,
my mind jumping around
the board, slapping down checkered
hate you pulled at fingers on my face,
picked dried salt from my eyes
and whispered “King me.”

You say you tangled your shifty body
with Jesus, felt the blood-slime on wood,
hung there smiling at his crown and eternity.

At my party, you ate
all the food took
my girlfriends home
fucked them at 2am
hummed at me after,
the drone of a dial tone.

My neck drooped from
the search,
you cupped my chin in your smoky hands,
turned it to show a pretty girl smiling
and kissed my cheek.

Now, we dance
twirl arms
over giggly children in the street,
kick puddles into the air,
sing songs of togetherness and
loneliness.