the nickel tour

We always say, excuse the mess.
Even if it is cleaner than usual.

With you, I knew I didn’t need to.
You would recognize the piles of little
paper strips, the brilliant lines salvaged from
other peoples poems, kept like fortunes.

You would see the broken mirrors,
the torn certificates, the thin whispery
ego hanging in the closet and say,
I have these in blue!

It wouldn’t seem strange to you,
that I frame things, like concrete,
funny flavored pizza and night air,
then hang them up as decoration.
I could see it in your picket fence grin.

When you laugh you lean back and lift
one foot off the ground, the gate swinging open.
Your voice is a porch,
your breath the wind chime summer,
I knew we could sip each other.
I just didn’t know it would taste so good.

Your arms formed a living room
around me, my head rested on your sofa chest.
We read all the poems titled Guest,
titled Come Closer, titled Release
and it started to feel like home, like
we might have already finished the tour
but we were just hanging out to see if we
could match up all the pieces.

Or maybe this was just one place
where we didn’t need to dim our shiny insides,
didn’t need to sweep any corners.
We could be dust and magic and tender skin.
We could just walk in, look around and say,

I like your style…

Damn baby, I like your style.