Alone or Lonely

“Alone,”
she said, and stopped, forgetting the last
of her sentence on my tongue.

“Lonely,”
I mouthed back to her
and began to embroider her back
with my nails,
scratching up rosy images
above the flanks of muscle.

We fell asleep eventually,
with the moon breathing
and the stars swaying.
Our days began to fragment
to fit the odd boxes of our dreams,
and she turned away from me.

I found her again
between breaths
and wrapped my arms around her ribs,
a careful smothering
she’d be happy for once mourning came.