A procedure. Two bluebirds perch
on a fraying cable
beyond the pane.
After, you fly us
somewhere bright
and bare.
We watch the sun bleed onto
earthen homes
and barefooted children.
You hold me as we lay,
limbs and tongues tangling
in the restive dark.
There was a procedure.
There is no color in the fucking.
The blue has been sucked
clean, marrow from bone.
A procedure.
Your thrusts are probing,
questions with no answers,
as our bodies glide and give,
one into the other,
as the ceiling fan hums,
as you empty inside me.
You do not find me.
*Context: This piece is a nod to Ernest Hemingway's short story, titled "Hills Like White Elephants."
