It starts with you   on a mattress in your parents' old room,   clipping your toenails into the room   like the room will fade   and you will move   onto other rooms   and you will go   to other places.   Then the wedding,   Then the woman passed out   in the driver's seat   at the order board at White Castle.   We woke her up and she went   'round to the pick up window   like she knew exactly where she was.   Then I wept   with my face in your night shirt,   trying hard as hell to say   "until death separates us,"   loosening the skin on your breastbone,   I painted your nails   and you sleep   while I write all this down.      There was a moth caught in the soapdish   laminated in lye   Will you still remember me well   If I don't get to two-o-o-five?   my dead line Gemini      When we're on different sides of the globe   I thought we'd keep our veins tangled   like a pair of mic cables,   And if there ain't enough slack to reach   that we'd solder them together   and across oceans they'd stretch.   Our faces reflected in separate windshields   and all our body hair pricked up   an elephant eyelash.   Should we be tempted by thief or saint   it seems I leave and you stay   to crawl the cage and curse.   But don't regret the done dirt,   there is no life plan set,   you just swallow the cold   and follow your breath until death.   Now even if the will to sleep persists   I can't 'cause a harsh cloth, it grazes my blisters.      There was a moth caught in the soapdish   laminated in lye   Will you still remember me well   If I don't get to two-o-o-five?   My dead line Gemini.      Today I fell asleep in a bath of hair.   Hair that once sprouted from my own   white wet chalk follicles.   I swallow a coal   and follow my breath   and I did it with the grapefruit soap   thinking of you.   Bathed, shaved, and oiled,   your legs are two skinny dolphins swimming   between the mattress and the layers of bedding   turning in your drug dry sleep.   When I ask you to kiss my pulse   you offer to start the shower.   I want a verb and you give me a noun.   What do you dream up while I tongue you down?      There was a moth caught in the soapdish   laminated in lye   Will you still remember me well   If I don't get to two-o-o-five?   My dead line Gemini.      You know my build.   You know my size.   The degree to which my eyes   are astigmatic.