Sarah Perrier

Maybe today is the outfit laid out
by the shoeless suicide. Maybe it's a wish

so wasted the cake relights and God
himself whispers try again. Maybe today

explains nothing as it reaches for its coat,
slips out the back like that song taught it to.

The sky whines with jets. No one's going anywhere
I'm going. Once, we drank glass after glass

of whatever the waiter brought because Europe
was just okay and we didn't speak the language.

It might have been wine, but that soapy note
cut my tongue like dishwater. We swished

and murmured like connoisseurs, intoxicated
by our own mistaking.

The barky dog next door speaks at length
of disobedience, tucks today under its paw

like a chewed slipper. Like it, I have rehearsed
the gestures of apology, given the gift of damage

wrapped up in what you had before. Whatever
confession I carry in my teeth, I carry it to you.

We sip air thick with honeysuckle and lighter fluid
instead of talking. A fence gate and a pair of jays

pass sentence on our silence and the sun
leaves this day behind, a whiff of ozone

and brake smoke in its wake. Elsewhere
the moon rises, doing what it can to stop the day

from breaking. It holds our house together,
its mouth the shape of sorrow and uncertain repair.