Meg Boyles

I think by now it must be indigo for many miles,
     and the white stars in the sky, like first sight

of lighthouse, begin to poke out. Early September,
     I imagine it as it was that evening: the window

open, the sound of cars outside, everywhere a gentle
     kind of shining. My mouth practiced Italian, repeated

all the important words: il petto, il mio cuore, il mio
     intero corpo. Does it sound right? All night, I swam

upstream: il sole, il mio fiume, la tua pelle. In the kitchen,
     glass broke as it hit the floor. A breeze traveled the length

of the home: coat rack, table, small bed, small shoes,
     toe to heel. I must be the only one awake. Again,

this dredging, the water of memory rises. As a wave,
     I follow a rhythm. I leave only to come back, come back.

I hardly know I am here. Outside the club,
two drunk mouths yell in Italian.

One mouth tumbles gracelessly down a ditch,
because the other mouth pushed.

A star twinkle of silver-yellow catches light
against the ditch's bottom.

It's one of the mouth's keys. He'd retrieve it,
if he wasn't being punched.

The noise on impact: black, then apple red,
electric blue, white. Again, black.

Mi dispiace! Mi dispiace! the bruised mouth yells,
and I am sorry too, but do nothing.

All week, I am sick with echoes, reverberating
against the wild noise.