I have worn you like outdated pearls.
waiting for a bygone era
somewhere in between
a rainy-day cab ride in New York City
and the Bogart good-bye
where we’ll always have Paris.

I have dressed in sequined gowns,
gloved hands to elbows,
waiting for your invitation.
I have walked miles drunk in high heels
through cracked crevices of sidewalks we once sweet-hearted,
passed dark hours in parks alone
until I got home.

No beacon light, no new messages.

I have packed my need for you
in boxes of old memories,
yearbooks, bad poetry
and various versions of my former life.

__________________________________________________________________________


I never want to wear her around my wrist like a watch
that infinitely loses time and
can't be fixed,
forced to adjust to lateness or still hours
in which time continues forward-
somewhere she is afforded continuous motion;

While I lie still
forever lamenting all the measurements lost.