even in hate I nurse you
it’s okay
if you don’t remember
you were recoiled

dealing at about 80 proof
with your red back exposed
glaring with the marks
of bottle coping, and your new friend

who’s raw glass edge ripped you
a surface wound, an outside emblem
of what you hid up front – of what
your lips hinted at above the pillow

it hurts!
what are you putting on me?
as you fell out
it was all I could see

the glaring color of your back
you’re back
and at the end of one my arms
there’s a fist

at the end of the other
a last grasp at tenderness