Rearranging Things You Said

She came in through the bathroom window.
—The Beatles 

You said you were only curious 
breezing in on a whim and staying 

You were confused by the order here 
the memorial still of still life 

(Maybe he’s dead or just resting 
maybe he’s just testing me) 

You paced the room rearranging things
books and carpets and blankets and stains 

Pictures on the floor, cups against the wall
as though gravity made no sense here 

(You said, A strange thing in Mexico 
happened to me on a trampoline) 

You paced the room rearranging things
like the light and the odor of the night 

(You said, You make my flower sweat 
you said, You make my sweater wet) 

Drawing the thread of your being here
around the armchair where I sat, tongue 

Tied in silk scarves of silence where 
my parched skin waits for you to come back 

Like wind on a burn, cool, searching 
and drawn to the still open window 

(You said, Your eyes are greedy children
you said, Your mind is a wrinkled bed)

You paced the room rearranging things
and now everything you touched is changed 

(You said, I can do anything I want 
I can do anything I want to here 

Drip wax on your skin 
trace fate in the fault lines of your hand 

Be unreal, bitch, spill wine, dance, even state facts
this is the only place where everything 

That has a place has no proper place 
in fact, it’s where I belong) 

Curious pleasure, curious pain, too much:
change is everything you touch.

---