The Mattress
I remember the mattress,
where you saw me asleep
for the first time, where we held
our breaths as friends passed my
door, keeping our love a secret garden.
I remember the mattress,
where we lay lazily in heat, skipping work
and the outside - waiting, wanting,
to have and to hold a place just our own.
I remember the mattress,
how it would become a dream to me,
change shape: from four sides and walls
holding me to you; to a triangle, three lines,
with that other body separating us; to a circle,
forever knowing I could never leave you.
Not that we married.
I remember the mattress,
where I’d read as a child,
feeling mulch and moss in the damp fabric,
sand dunes rising through the seams,
even levitating; the mattress
taking me beyond those words.
I remember the mattress,
as a map of friends, of tissue,
of spilt drinks and nail varnish -
red, your blood, hers - of letters
stuffed under pillow at a parent’s
approaching foot.
I remember the mattress,
pillows pushed to the bottom in sweat,
sheets tossed into a curve like a smile,
those pillows as eyes, tangled legs as a nose,
our splayed fingers the crooked teeth
with white tips.
I remember that mattress.
It was the last thing they loaded into the van.
How empty the apartment looked without it.
Your things in boxes. My eulogy spent.
I remember the mattress.
I remember you.
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