irvine drive

Walking up Irvine Drive, I remembered
 the wood floors of our tiny apartment
The way that the clear film would stick to the soles of our feet
and then shed from us carelessly like a snake’s skin, like love
as we walked from the kitchen to the bathroom to the bed

We would fall asleep together
Dear little lambs, ripe for the slaughter
Our sheets speckled with the rinds of our home

In the morning light we’d dance by the table
Forgetting that with every frontward gesture, every backward step
we were slowing sloughing the skins off of our sanctuary
leaving it raw as the bacon on the counter
exposed as my breasts in that lace night gown

and so gentle it all was

The whole thing was fated to bow, it was destined to bend
The God damn floors were peeling
How could we ever believe it would not end


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