"there's your thumb..."

there’s your thumb sliding up and across my back,
resting in the space between my shoulders and neck.

i miss the cylinders in our cabinets -
shining dark, old and not ours at all -
and the window by our bed
with its ground-floor view of neighbors
playing with and punishing their children.

we would slide into dreams somehow,
late at night and not too tired,
streetlights casting mangled and shaking shadows
over our cheap blue blanket and against the door we pretended was a wall.

early in the morning, i would wake up reaching for your arm,
for your neck where i’d bury my face until you had to leave for work.

my arms stretched out and open until you were gone,

the memory of your thumb
leaving me stranded.