Your fingers are ivory keys
playing careful and tedious scales
across my body.
I wish you would crawl
into my mouth, thread
your tongue with my vocal cords;
remind me how to sing
in this world where monsters stack bricks
across my chest, threatening to suffocate
daydreams. Daylight breaks across our horizon
of dirty dishes, lipstick stained
shot glasses lined with gritty water
that leaks over the edge of this metal sink
where I rest,
wrapped up in you.
I wonder
if our bodies could wrap
until skin is unsure where to end.
Perhaps then
we’ll crash through pipes
and grow gills, stretch homemade fins
until we discover
how to breathe
in this wide and dangerous sea,
immune to labeled glances
cast by sinister creatures
who cannot understand
the music
you create
in my bones.
Teri Klauser
Teri Klauser earned her MA in English and her BFA in Creative Writing from Stephen F. Austin State University. She has publications in The Mochilla Review and The Gordian Review. Teri currently teaches English at Tyler Junior College in Texas as a full time professor.
Artwork: Anna Dittmann, Out of the Sea
Website: http://annadittmann.com/
Gingerbread House Lit Mag 