Aubade

M.T. Fallon

Voices tell you how it is, but they show you nothing. Scarves of darkness wrap round your eyes, your mind. There are listeners, microphones, sonographs, and you speak, Come, bring me a sip of water, a sponge for my brow. Something is burning: cloth, rope, marijuana, you don't know for certain, it's faint, like a ribbon of blood in water, and now the taste of a woman's sweat, salty and slightly bitter, and you like it, and you want more, but how do you know it is a woman, you don't, and you drop your hands to your sides and you feel it, flesh, and you claw into its girth, a midsection, a backside, you don't know, but it squirms, like a desire, and reaching your gaze into the dark breach now you know what's missing, of what you are without, the modality that might let you know just what sort of day is about to begin.