the large cockroach dead from poison, looking up at the ceiling, packing lightly, imagining the late train home, thank you note, touching the pale of your forearm with my fingers, feeling beautiful, breathing together, a banana spotting black, last night's unfinished wine in a green bottle, the face of the light fixture, checking your skin in the mirror, checking your bank account, our clothes stuffed into one piece of luggage, in hotel beds, two windows facing south, ghosts of last night's feast, the smell of rot from the soil, on your floor, there is protocol and survival, torn foil, an entire body slackening, exhaling, do you know the way back, the licked spoon on the counter, the wet doorknob where hands have touched, one of us sleeping, one of us listening to the other snore, the long way there, the quick boomerang back, the monstera with the brown tips, the cactus with its itinerant cycles of bloom, what if the apps fail, what if the map misdirects, before the surgery, time turns soft, cracked glass casserole dish forgotten in the freezer, two lovers fighting in silence in the restaurant window for all to witness, for years, through tears, no one takes a picture, over a coffin, oh to be young, and to be that now, with some hope for something else, something new, with what we saw in the kitchen that morning, us on our backs, us on our way