He wraps his lips around the opening, the same lips
that dig into my skin when he wants to show me what
he thinks love is, and takes a long pull. His Adam’s
apple bobs with each swallow: one, two, three, four.
I look away, not wanting his glazed eyes to settle
on mine. I’m not much to look at anymore with my
graying hair and sagging skin. He could do better with
his distinguished looks.
The lines on the water-stained drywall reach toward
a fissure running the length of the coffered ceiling.
Dust from his carving lies thick on all floor. I focus on
breathing—silent, steady—lean against the headboard,
the sheets tangled into a tomb, binding us together.
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
It’s the same expression he used the night we first met
on the art gallery steps. Back when heat came from a
burning barrel, water from a curtained stall at the Y,
and money from the backseat of a car. How quickly he
ignored his exhibit and focused on my features.
He rolls over and lays a tempered hand on my
flaccid stomach, presses the apex of his kiss against
my forehead. I close my eyes and tighten a fist as he
flattens his affection into something unwanted—the
sound of the swick.
“Don’t you like posing for me?” he asks.
“Of course I do.”
The tequila bottle tanks upward, its contents guzzled
down: one, two, three. A swath of dark hair cascades in
front of his eyes, and he pushes it back with a shaking
hand.
His features droop, overworked and ignored. “Yet,
you’re too tired.”
The way his face pulls, jagged and rasping, reminds
me of the man he was when we met—the man he was
without a muse. Time hasn’t forgotten when we needed
each other. The days I slunk around his studio, drunk