aftermath
by Valentine Bonnaire c. Jan/2013
long lost lust, late afternoon
you peeled your chinese dragon t-shirt off and hurled it
so wrapped was I, rapt
in the intensity of your wrapper, fortuned
how very lost inside your gaze
“come up for air,” strangers said
but we were glued
like some unbreakable thing
long legged shadow dancers
in the lean light our cameras caught
days of the faraway haze
bathing myself in the pretend scent
of almost marriage, imagined
it was love as love lusts, and steals
it was love, as love becomes a precipice
as love becomes tinned reels
or tropes of time where groped we lay
you could have touched me anywhere
that’s how far I’d fallen, fast
dark dahlia in a little motel splayed
her art teacher in leather, his Leica’d licking
lensed on Los Angeles streets
you said, “what am I going to tell her?”
“how am I going to go home without my shirt?”
with us everything began at hurled
that dragon shirt my badge of courage
later you carved our hearts on well lit tables
where our kisses clattered, clamoring
under dim sum noons, under dim-lit sums of things
afternoons at the armory in your car
late light of longing, legs akimbo
pants pulled down, I never wanted
anything as much as you, I never
debased myself again like that, when
every stolen thing proved more exotic
as when you raced towards me, erotic
VALENTINE BONNAIRE - WRITER 