Bonded

It is late enough for your whiskey-broke baritone 
to ask how long this stew should simmer, how much longer
the kitchen needs.

After that, how much longer 
will it take me to finish the story,
to write open the ice I can't crack. 

How much longer 
I love you 
when language stretches
harrowed schedules.

We lack a verb 
that asks nicely 
for nothing. 

No honesty unbludgeoned 
by longing when we crave an equation
one can hold against an other. 

A record of wrongs 
becomes a recipe. 
If fear is a failure
to thrive, wherever we stand 
four feet remain outside a circle. 
Two pairs of wanting-in.

I touch a clementine rind coiled atop 
the counter. Witness carrots bubbling,
bobbing like toddler fists. You stir the pot 
as my pen pickaxes paper. 

Celebrate the bond & the
bondage, these marks round our wrists, 
fresh singe of chains we jangle together.