The Drought

How quickly we turned hostile.
Was it slowly?
Trepidation at its finest
So we could not feel it creep up behind us,
cutting air like a knife.

In hindsight, (celebrating my victories in the bathroom mirror,
Stained teeth peering out from the curtain of my lips)
I knew your emotion
I felt it in the palms of my hands
and saw it creep from the corners of your eyes.

I have memorized your wrinkles
and poured water from your brow only to watch it
fill the creases stemming from your lashes.

Take me to his ocean!
I am calling out to the wind.
I am licking your cheekbones.

You taste of peonies and warm wood,
of termites and the fall of Rome,
the ashes in Poland.

I have hidden all of this in ink and paper,
stuffed a wine bottle with your taste,
all of your criticism, and the collected rainfall
of two-and-a-half years in California.

We are the drought.
The farmers curse their gods and lift pitchforks to the sun.
We are damnation and rows of dried tomatoes.

Surely this is the end of days:
a startling lack of avocados on the golden coast.
Children wail to find their bread filled with sand
and have no energy to run barefoot through yellow grass.

We are living off the sea,
we are drinking only wine and our livers are pacified,
our hearts tick like clockwork.

You never answer me, just stare and shake your head.
I pour wine down your face,
down your pale, white face,
but it has no apparent path.

Take me take me! Where have I thrown my soul?
I long to dig up the graves of our memories
pop a cork and breathe magnetism
in the space between our clasped palms.

Instead,
I am watching deep red spread across your features
and it is nothing but split wine
on worn hardwood floors.