Inanimate Objects

What he believed in
wasn’t living, paper flowers,
wooden buds. The moths

around him were made of wax,
how I hated their wings
for melting into the lamp.

When he spoke to me, he imagined
someone else, a cut-out doll
whose edges weren’t frayed.

This was the secret
to our relationship, we didn’t know
who the other was, except

for the shadows we left
on gravestones, the sculptures
of angels.

And when he asked me to kiss him,
all I could think of was how he knew
I wasn’t alive.