Phil kissed me in the moonlight by the white-gold

Coliseum. I took it like a promise, but he just wanted

to shut me up and fuck in the park, but

that was all I really wanted anyway:

a lover to run with down the Vatican steps.

We never did see the bulls run at Pamplona,

but he took a bus upstate to meet me at the races

and he wrote me from Tokyo, so I thought maybe

we would hold hands at the movies in Old City Philadelphia,

but the closer we were to home, the less he cared

to know me. The ghost of another woman haunted

my nights, and when he evaporated into the sunlight,

I lay in bed with my back to the door because

I didn't want to know my place on the sidelines. Instead

I waited up late for a call that never came through,

hungry for something to love.

In the end, he said I was spoiled by my rearing;

then stole pearl earrings from my bed-stand.

I take it back. He didn’t do that,   

but my mirrored aviators disappeared after he wore them

to the train station. I know probably left them

on the milk counter at the coffee shop,

but I always blamed him for walking away

when I was desperate to get away from myself. 

In the end, I took back my books and gave him

an empty box full of his things,

but once you’ve been to bed with a boy

you’ll always kind of know him. Like

I remember how one cold night he told me a secret

that I've kept so well I'll never forget it:

something about arsenic and the pigs getting sick.

And when I asked him where his father lived

I can still sense the sharp intake of breath

when he said, “My Daddy lives in heaven.” 

Copyright 2016 | Pet Murmur