When Golden Mouths Speak

Tongue in my ear at the Beauty

Bar after two for one martinis at

Café Flor with Carter and Tim,

like talking to your grandfather

except with more gold in their

mouths. Shared travel stories with

Carter, we’d been to some of the same

places. I felt old, unknowingly wise.

He said he loved her in Vietnam,

loved her on the water canals near

Bangkok, loved her even in Phnom

Phen when he saw the shrine of skulls,

when he thought there was no more

love to give. She died last month,

and I was jealous of him. Losing all

that love, that empty space inside him.

Later Megan and I buy beers, the cheap ones,

dance in the center of it all hands raised

to the sky as is if pretending for

a moment we’re not looking for love,

or a tongue, or a touch to fill ourselves up on.

We buy beers, Megan and I, the cheap ones,

ask for olives because we forgot to eat.

Stomach feels like a cave, the air growls inside.

A tongue in my ear at the Beauty

Bar, direct road to the weakest of

knees, to a shoulder, an arm spinning

me around and around, feeling that

womanly way again, finding balance

even on this sticky floor.

Tongue admires things only seen

in the dark pink light of a body

heated room. My eyes, hand, the

glowing white of teeth. The only

thing we are certain of is movement.

So we dance, dance-

fill ourselves up with that.

I hope somewhere Carter feels it too.