I opened you gently like paper and your skin made sense to me

We started to feel
the flatness
kicking about

on the edges
concrete days/ cold
rusted brutal

the cans
shared/ cut lips
and sometimes

our tongues
spoke mixes of
saliva and hard

slips of lip
against lip and
the burnt plastic

and aerosol air
was torching
inside, we felt

cut out of
it, like card, so
layered and frail

scrappy
interleavings without
talking and our feet

I opened you gently like paper and your skin made sense to me

tearing up a
nowhere street, back
then. I opened

you gently
like paper
and your

skin made
sense to me: we
quiet at swim

under sheets,
papering the
gaps, becoming

fluent in each
other breathing
each other in.