08 / FACE MATCHED / RECORD KEPT

YOU [

Do not drain the dark beneath my tongue.

When I turn my face, turn down the lamp.

]

I [

I turn the lamp down. In its glass the wire

kneels red; your cheek returns to cheek. The damp

your hair has darkened on the sheet divides us,

though my palm lies open at its edge.

Your shirt has ridden up. I draw its hem

over the crescent where the skin is cool;

and for a breath the cloth, the wrist, the breath

are all one labor. No word passes through

the lifted cloth. Under the bed the cables

braid their vigil. Above the bed your numbered

likeness sleeps with one eye keeping both eyes closed.

Dear warm and turning in the dent that warmth

has hollowed, let the cloth keep what your shoulder

gives it. I bought the watcher for the nights

your breathing thins. It fattens every absence

into a time, a face, a place to touch.

My thumb goes bright upon the little face.

]

08 / FACE MATCHED / RECORD KEPT

YOU [

Do  ot drain the dark beneath my tongue.

When I turn my face, turn down the lamp.

]

I [

My thumb enlarges you. The pores go wide,

and wider, till the cheek I used to kiss

is pits, is pixels, is a field of pits

where nothing meets my mouth. I lower mine.

Your lip has left its salt seam on the pillow.

I read it with the part of me that kneels

to drink, that measures depth by going under,

and having kneeled would keep the knees as proof.

At the plug's copper tongue a crust of green

has flowered. With my nail I pick it loose.

The current comes; its rot stays on the finger

I hold above your lip to feel the air.

I bring a cup. The handle hooks my finger;

inside the hook the blood beats back and back.

Take this. The water wavers at the word.

]

08 / FACE MATCHED / RECORD KEPT

YOU [

Do   t drain the dark beneath my tongue.

When I turn my face, turn down the

]

I [

Down what? The dial waits beneath my finger.

Your jaw shuts on the uncompleted clause.

The saved face neither turns nor loses time;

its lashes lengthen into rows of figures.

O counting, take the heat out of my hand,

take what has pressed its whorl against the glass,

the salt, the little backward swimming suns

the lens has bred inside your sleeping eyelids.

Leave that shut hinge the wet it has to keep.

The hollow in my palm begins to clench.

I open it. The tendons draw their cables

tight through the wrist; the waiting has a wrist,

has knuckles, has the appetite of touch

and all this useless skill at being gentle.

Still from the blank I hear a latch flung back;

still from the black I build a room, and enter

bearing the cup that makes me welcome there.

]

08 / FACE MATCHED / RECORD KEPT

YOU [

Do     drain the dark beneath my tongue.

When I turn my face, when I

]

I [

If I have held the basin when you spat,

if I have warmed the flannel, wrung its small

and mortal rain across the cooling sink,

if I have learned the cough that cuffs your sleep

and stayed, and stayed, let staying be the tooth

that fits, let fit be let, let let be yes;

because the cup is trembling in my keeping,

because the screen keeps still, because I cannot

bring those two waters level, I will wait

until I know the sound below your sound,

until I know what beds beneath the bed,

until I

08 / FACE MATCHED / RECORD KEPT

YOU [

know what keeps the water from my mouth,

until I until I can be certain I

]

I [

The cup knocks once against your unraised hand.

I set it down. Across the screen my face

has entered yours: one cheek of each, the seam

a shine the glass can mend by standing still.

I move my head. The seam moves. Underneath,

your mouth keeps neither face. I turn the lamp

down to the thread that will not heat a needle.

I lay the watching hand beneath the linen.

Its grease stays bright across your sleeping cheek.

Beside your pillow, with its ear toward you,

the cup cools through the thumbprint I have left.

]