Swallow it Down

I'm scratching at some graffiti with a stub of chalk
When you walk up behind me and whisper
'Art is dead, you know,'
Sending chills up my spine and distracting me from the
Four jagged lines of
Accidental rhyme I was trying to leave on the wall
Amid a battlefield of
Profanity and
Phone-numbers.
I turn to face you and
Take a deep breath
Filling my lungs with a rush of hot air and
The spark of the match that you're lighting with one hand and
The thin spiral of smoke that has started to drift
From the cigarette you're holding
Between your fingers.
Embers and ash float down in the breeze
As you flick your wrist and push up your sleeves
And I feel words I've never tasted
At the back of my throat
Dissolving into the memory of every pretty thing I
Ever wrote then
Pressing my lips to yours
I let a strange new poem crawl inside you
And it blooms like a morning glory
Heavy
On your tongue
You make a low noise and go limp and let your
Life-line drop into the dust
Touching my lower back and
Leaning against the rough wall
As we smear the sentence
I was trying to choke out in shaky script
When you walked up behind me and whispered
'Art is dead, you know…'
And I have a feeling
You'll think that I'm out of my mind
The kind of girl who stumbles
Into the arms of the first stranger she can find and
Wakes up in the middle of the night from a dream about
Kissing him
As though her life
Depended on it
But I know what I'm doing
And pulling away
My eyelashes graze your cheek for the last time
Then I'm down the road and
Half-way across town when you finally realize
I was only giving you
Mouth-to-mouth