I wonder if your pinpricks 
peak when mine do–
In the almost-waking morning, 
when our love would come 
in rustling sheets, 
a left-arm reaching, 
pollen coats the top layer of a dream 
we were both in, 
a sigh into your shoulder 
like an exhale into Sunday, 
the hours we have 
before your train back home. 

Do they come 
in songs we’d volley between our ears—
you, an extension of my art—
now, a scratched track
for you or me alone. 
Sometimes I play 
your song
as though you could hear
through me–
if I play it enough 
maybe it will reach you, 
through that thread that links us,
empty cups pressed against 
both our ears. 

Do they come 
when everything closes at night, 
and your voice is like wool around me, 
and your laugh is a furnace 
on the first cold evening of the year
I thought we’d experience together. 

You can’t think 
I don’t love you 
when I know 
you feel my ache too,
like a tooth knocked out
and all our tongue tastes 
is absence and salt.